Fig 11. A pre-spliced HAC1 restores virulence in ire1Δ mutants.

(A) Kaplan-Meyer curves of mouse survival after infection with the wild-type strain SC5314, ire1Δ mutants and complemented strains (ire1Δ + IRE1), hac1Δ mutants and complemented strains (hac1Δ + HAC1), and ire1Δ mutants containing an intron-less copy of HAC1 (ire1Δ + HAC1*). Pooled data from two independent experiments in which the wild type and the complete A or B series of mutants were tested in parallel (five mice per strain and experiment) are shown. Data are presented in two separate graphs for ease of comparison, with the data for the wild type included in both graphs. Pairwise comparison was performed using the Log-rank test; ns, not significantly different from the wild type. (B) Fungal burden in the kidneys of mice shown in (A), determined by plating of organ homogenates and calculation of CFU/g tissue. The horizontal line indicates the detection limit (90 CFU/g); for statistical analysis, samples from which no colonies were obtained were set to the detection limit. White circles represent data from animals reaching humane endpoints, black circles indicate mice sacrificed 21 days after infection. Bars represent mean and SEM. Data were analyzed by 1-way ANOVA followed by Kruskal-Wallis and Dunn’s multiple comparisons test to compare each strain to the wild type.