Figure 1. Counts of colony forming units (cfu's) after sterile and septic injury.
Green lines represent bacterial growth in wild-type eggs. Red lines represent bacterial growth in Tc-zen1 RNAi (serosa-less) eggs. Sterile injury did not introduce bacteria (lower lines: average of 2 cfu's found at t = 0 and an average of 5 cfu's found at t = 6). Septic injury introduced on average 53 bacteria into wild-type eggs and 49 into serosa-less eggs. These numbers increased to 747 ± 106 cfu's in wild-type eggs (green upper line) and to 7260 ± 1698 cfu's in serosa-less eggs (red upper line) at t = 6. This means that bacteria propagate twice as fast in serosa-less eggs (p < 0.01, as determined by a Pearson's chi-square test). Suspensions of 10 eggs were used per LB agar plate (see ‘Materials and methods’), and 10 plates were analyzed per treatment and time point, giving rise to the error bars presented in the graph (standard error).