Figure 3. Abundance of Bradyrhizobium enterica in Samples Obtained from Patients with Cord Colitis, as Compared with Control Samples.

B. enterica was more abundant in samples obtained from patients with the cord colitis syndrome (CCS) than in samples obtained from healthy controls, patients with colon cancer, or patients with graft-versus-host disease (GVHD). In addition, B. enterica was present in colon-biopsy samples from three additional patients with cord colitis. In Panels A through F, the top lanes show amplification of a B. enterica target after 35 cycles of a polymerase-chain-reaction (PCR) assay, and the bottom lanes show amplification of a human actin target after 35 PCR cycles. A lane containing reagents but no DNA (no-template control) is indicated by 0. Shown are results for five healthy control specimens (p1 through p5) (Panel A), five colon-cancer specimens (c1 through c5) (Panel B), three colon-biopsy specimens from patients with pathologically confirmed GVHD (g1 through g3) (Panel C), and DNA from temporally distinct colon-biopsy samples from Patient 4 (4a, 4b, 4c, and 4e) (Panel D), from Patient 9 (9b through 9f) (Panel E), and from Patient 6 (6a and 6b) (Panel F). Samples are displayed chronologically. Milestones in therapy for the three patients with cord colitis are indicated by colored arrowheads. Microscopical images of colon tissue obtained from a patient with cord colitis are shown, including a section stained with hematoxylin and eosin (Panel G) and a corresponding section (Panels H through K), along with colon tissue from healthy controls (Panels L and M) stained with either a universal eubacterial probe (EUB, yellow) or a bradyrhizobium-specific probe (Brady) and counterstained with 4',6-diamidino-2-phenylindole (DAPI, orange).