Figure 3.

Bacterial loads in various tissues of mice orogastrically infected with K. pneumoniae 1084S. Groups of 8-wk old BALB/c male mice were orogastrically inoculated with 1 × 10⁸ CFU of K. pneumoniae 1084S or ΔClbA. Three to five mice were sacrificed at the day 1 (A), day 3 (B), day 5 (C), and day 7 (D) post-inoculation. The mucosa of the small and large intestines, liver, spleen, brain, and blood were retrieved and homogenized for the determination of bacterial loads for the 1084S- (dark gray) and ΔClbA- (white) group. CFU per gram of tissues is presented in a box and whisker plot. The edges of each box are the 25th and 75th percentiles, and the middle is the median. Lower case letter “a” represents statistical significance of CFUg⁻¹, p < 0.05 (one-tailed) determined by Mann-Whitney test, between 1084S and ΔClbA.