Fig. 2.

Commensal intestinal E. coli loads in C. jejuni infected conventionally colonized NOD2^−/− mice. Wildtype (WT; white circles) and NOD2^−/− mice (black circles) were perorally infected with C. jejuni strain 81–176 on three consecutive days (d0, 1 and 2). Commensal E. coli loads were compared (a) in feces immediately before infection (d0) and 14 days thereafter and determined (b) in luminal samples derived from the gastrointestinal tract at day 14 following C. jejuni challenge. Medians (black bars) and levels of significance (p values) determined by Mann–Whitney U test are indicated. Numbers of mice harboring commensal E. coli out of the total number of analyzed animals are given in parentheses. Data were pooled from four independent experiments