Figure 9.

Bacterial survival and immune cell association in murine whole blood. (A) Colony forming units of S. aureus and E. coli were determined from infected murine blood. All values correspond to the means of three independent experiments with pooled whole-blood from 10 BALB/c mice infected ex vivo with 1 × 10⁶/ml of GFP-expressing bacteria. Each dot represents the mean of an independent experiment +/- standard deviation (n = 3). The relative numbers of CD45⁺ cells (B) and of (C) neutrophils (Ly6G⁺/CD11b⁺) during the course of infection were measured by flow cytometry. (D) The percentage of various immune cells associated with GFP-expressing S. aureus or (E) with GFP-expressing E. coli was determined relative to their overall cell population in the blood. All values correspond to the means of three independent experiments with pooled whole blood from 10 mice.