FIG 9.
Effect of the upper genital tract inoculation on chlamydial spreading to the GI tract. The same CBA/J mice infected with C. muridarum intravaginally (a to d, n = 5) or intrabursally (e to h, n = 5) as described in the legend of Fig. 6 were swabbed from both cervicovaginal (a, b, e, and f) and anorectal (c, d, g, and h) sites on different days after infection, as indicated along the x axis at the bottom of the figure. The number of live organisms recovered from the swabs was expressed as log10 IFUs (a, e, c, g), and the number of mice with positive live-organism shedding (+ve) was expressed as a percentage (b, f, d, h) as displayed along the y axis. Note that following genital tract inoculation, C. muridarum spread to the GI tract as early as day 7 and persisted in the GI tract regardless of the precise routes of inoculation. However, intrabursal inoculation, although resulting in a delayed vaginal shedding of live organisms (no live organism on day 7, star in panel e), caused a significantly higher level of infection in the GI tract on day 7 (panel g, marked with a star, P < 0.05).