FIG 2.

Infections using equivalent numbers of bacteria reveal an infectivity defect for C. trachomatis lacking TmeA. Duplicate sets of HeLa cultures were infected in triplicate with equal numbers (as determined by genome copy number) of C. trachomatis WT, tmeA, or tmeB strain to achieve an approximate MOI of 0.1. At 24 h postinfection, one set of cultures was methanol fixed and stained for chlamydiae (A), while the second was processed for enumeration of progeny EBs by passage onto fresh HeLa monolayers (B). All inclusions were enumerated by fluorescence staining of chlamydiae in fixed samples, and data for direct and progeny counts are represented as means ± standard deviations from triplicate samples. Student's t test with Welch's correction was used to address significance (*, P < 0.008; **, P < 0.009).