Figure 6.
Assessment of macrophages phagocytosis and bacterial clearance. Phagocytosis and killing of NTHi bacteria was assessed in peritoneal macrophages from WT and Asc mice by quantifying the colony counts remaining after loading with NTHi and then 1 h (phagocytosis) or 3 h (killing) incubation with gentamicin to destroy all extracellular bacteria. Bars represent bacteria recovered after lysis of the macrophages. Asc−/− macrophages exhibited less phagocytic uptake of NTHi (1 h), but once inside the cell a similar proportion of bacteria were killed (3 h). Experiments were performed in triplicate and expressed as mean ± SEM. *Significantly different than WT mice (P < 0.05).