Figure 2.

Stk1 phosphorylation of CcpA alters S. aureus infectivity in a murine abscess model. C57BL/6N mice (n = 6 per group) were challenged retro-orbitally with 1 × 10⁷ CFU of S. aureus strains Newman (black symbols), MST14 (white symbols), MST14 harboring plasmid pCN34_ccpA (light gray symbols), and MST14 harboring plasmid pCN34_ccpA_Ala (dark gray symbols), respectively, and mice were sacrificed 4 days p.i. (A) Bacterial loads determined by plating serial dilutions of homogenized tissue samples on sheep blood agar plates. (B,C) Cytokine levels of IL-1β (B) and KC [CXCL-1; (C)] in homogenized liver tissue of infected animals at 4 days p.i. are depicted. Data given in (B) and (C) represent the mean ± SD (n = 6). ^*P < 0.05; ^**P < 0.01 (Mann–Whitney U-test).