FIG 6.

Comparison of C. muridarum with or without mutations in tc0668 and/or tc0237 for live-organism recovery from vaginal and rectal swabs and upper genital tract pathology following transcervical inoculation. The same C. muridarum organisms were used to infect C57BL/6J mice via transcervical inoculation as described in the legend to Fig. 5. (A) At various time points postinoculation, as indicated on the x axis, both vaginal (graphs a, d, and g) and rectal (graphs b, e, and h) swabs were taken for titration of live organisms from the genital and GI tracts, respectively, and live-organism recovery is expressed as log₁₀ IFU counts per swab, as displayed on the y axis. (B) The hydrosalpinx data were obtained on day 63 as described in the legend to Fig. 5. Note that although both WT and mutant C. muridarum organisms displayed similar courses of live-organism shedding from the genital tract, mutant C. muridarum developed significantly delayed/reduced courses of shedding from the same mouse GI tracts, the latter of which correlated with reduced hydrosalpinx severity and incidence. *, P < 0.05 (Wilcoxon rank sum test for IFU comparison in graph b versus graph e or h; see the legend to Fig. 5 for a pathology comparison).