FIG 4.

Monitoring live organism shedding from mouse genital and GI tracts after coinfection. As indicated on the left of the figure, groups of female CBA/1J mice were intravaginally (ivag) infected with a mCherry-expressing wild-type (clone CMpmCHerry, red bar [panel a, n = 10]) or plasmid-free (clone CMUT3.5, black bar [panel c, n = 14; panel e, n = 14]) chlamydial organisms. Seven days after the intravaginal infection, mice were intragastrically (ig) infected with the same Wt chlamydial organisms, as indicated by red arrows (panel f, n = 14; panel h, n = 11). All mice were monitored for live chlamydial organism shedding from both vaginal (panels a, c, e, and g) and rectal (panels b, d, f, and h) swabs, and the titers of Wt (red) and Pf (black) organisms were quantitated separately and are expressed as the log₁₀ IFU per swab (y axis) on different days after intravaginal infection (x axis). *, P < 0.01 (area-under-the-curve comparison using a Wilcoxon rank sum test).