Figure 2. PA1006 is necessary for virulence.

A/B) Mouse thermal injury. A) Mice were scalded as described in Materials and Methods and a total of 1×10³ CFU of the Pae strain to be tested was injected subcutaneously in the burn eschar immediately after burning. Mortality was observed for 5 days post-burn/infection. Three separate experiments were conducted with each strain. The average percent mortality values are shown (** = p<0.01, n = 15/strain tested). (•) WT; (○)ΔPA1006; (▾)ΔPA1006:attb:PA1006. B) PA1006 is required for full dissemination in the mouse thermal injury model. Quantitation of bacteria recovered from the livers of burned and infected mice. The number of CFU was calculated per gram of tissue. p = 0.04 (between PAO1 and PA1006), and p = 0.0002 (between PA1006 and the complemented strain), via student t-test. There were 10 mice total for each group. C) Effect of ΔPA1006 on inflammation in a rat lung model of infection. ^aMean ± SD. ANOVA, Bonferroni multiple comparisons test indicated: P<0.001 for PAO1 vs ΔPA1006, P>0.05 for PAO1 vs ΔPA1006:attb:PA1006), and P<0.001 for ΔPA1006 vs ΔPA1006:attb:PA1006).