Figure 5.

Rickettsia buchneri prevents infection and replication of Rickettsia parkeri in tick cell culture. Uninfected IRE11 and IRE11 infected with different levels of R. buchneri-GFPuv were challenged with different doses of R. parkeri-mKate. Rickettsial replication in IRE11 cells was monitored for 14 days by measuring GFPuv and mKate fluorescence on a microplate reader. (A) GFPuv fluorescence indicating replication of R. buchneri-GFPuv. (B–D) mKate fluorescence indicating growth of R. parkeri-mKate at challenge doses of 1,000:1 (B), 100:1 (C), and 10:1 (D); lines show mean and error bars standard deviation of three replicate wells. Means were compared to the uninfected control IRE11 using a two-way ANOVA with Dunnett's multiple-comparison test; statistically significant values are marked by asterisks ^*p < 0.05, ^***p < 0.001, ^****p < 0.0001. Data are representative of two independently performed experiments (see Supplementary Figure S4).