Figure 3.

Survival (A) and blood bacterial burden (B) of CD1 mice inoculated by intraperitoneal injection with 1.5 × 10⁸ CFU of DAN13730 or Δcps14B or with Todd Hewitt broth as a control. Bacterial counts were determined in serial dilutions of 5 μL of blood obtained from the tail vein 12 h after inoculation. The Mantel–Cox log-rank test revealed a significant difference (P < 0.0001) in survival rate between the groups: all mice receiving the wild-type strain died, whereas all those receiving the mutant strain survived, and all the control animals were unaffected. The Mann–Whitney rank-sum test showed a significant difference (P < 0.001) in blood bacterial burden between the mice inoculated with the wild-type strain and those inoculated with the mutant strain (asterisk).