FIG 4.
The ferritin-like protein Dps has a major role in the protection of NTHI strain 86-028NP from H2O2-induced oxidative stress. A strain of 86-028NP that lacked dps was grown exponentially and then treated with 500 μM H2O2 for 10 min. The cells were harvested and plated to assess viability. Loss of dps produced a large and significant loss in cell viability relative to that of the parent strain. Complementation of the mutated gene with either dps or hktE restored the parental phenotype in both cases. Error bars show standard errors of the means. ****, P ≤ 0.0001 (n = 6).