Figure 3.

Adjunct respiratory mucosal immunotherapy accelerates bacterial clearance and curbs bacterial rebound during chronic pulmonary tuberculosis. (A) Experimental schema. At 4 weeks postinfection, mice were started on an oral antibiotic therapy. Groups of mice were treated for 16 weeks. In a set of animals, a single dose of AdCh68Ag85A was administered intranasally (I.N.) at 4 weeks after the initiation of antibiotic therapy. Animals were sacrificed for analysis at specified time points. In some animals, antibiotic therapy was ceased at 20 weeks postinfection. Tuberculosis disease indices were assessed in these animals 4 weeks after the cessation of antibiotic therapy (week 24). (B) Line graph showing kinetic changes in bacterial burden in the lung. Unshaded area indicates antibiotic continuation phase and shaded area indicates antibiotic cessation phase. (C) Bar graph showing the mean fold changes in lung bacterial burden during the antibiotic continuation phase and subsequently during the antibiotic cessation phase. Data are expressed as the mean ± standard error of the mean of 10–12 mice/group, representative of 1 to 3 independent experiments (depending on the time point). ABx, antibiotics alone; CFU, colony-forming units; M.tb, Mycobacterium tuberculosis.