FIG 3.

The presence of AAT during Shigella infection facilitates PMN migration and enhances the invasion of epithelial cells. (A and B) AAT in concentrations between 1 and 100 nM significantly increased PMN migration (A) and bacterial invasion (B) in comparison to those in cells infected in the absence of AAT. (C) The addition of PMNs and 10 nM AAT during Shigella infection led to a 6.5-fold increase in the number of bacteria invading epithelial cells. In comparison, the addition of PMNs alone doubled the number of invading bacteria. The data are expressed as means ± SE from five replicates for all conditions tested. Asterisks denote P values of <0.05 (*) and <0.01 (**) as determined by a 2-tailed nonparametric Mann-Whitney U test. This image was created with BioRender.