Figure 5. sehAB is transiently involved in Salmonella virulence upon peroral inoculation.
Mice were inoculated intraperitoneally (A) or perorally (B & C) with a 1∶1 mixture of two Salmonella strains as indicated. C57BL/6 mice we used, except for panel C for which 129S2 and C57BL/6 mice were infected as indicated. Spleens were harvested two days (A), five days (B) or at various times (C) post-inoculation and bacteria were enumerated. The lowest and highest total CFU/organ in each group of CI were in (B) WT versus : ΔsehAB, 8.7×105–2.3×107; ΔsehB, 2.3×105–1.9×108; ΔsehA, 4.3×103–2.5×107; ΔsehAB pSehAB, 5.2×104–1.3×108; ΔsehAB ΔsehCD, 6×105–1.4×107; (C) WT versus ΔsehAB in 129S2: Day 5, 2.8×103-1.3×104; day 14, 3.6×104-6×104; day 18, 2.5×104-1.2×106; in C57BL/6: 8.7×105-6.2×106. Each symbol represents a mouse and horizontal bars correspond to the means ± SD. A one-sample t-test was used to determine whether a CI was significantly different of one, and unpaired t-tests to determine whether two values were significantly different. P-values: ns, not significant; *, P<0.05; **, P<0.01; ***, P<0.0005.