FIG 1.

Wild-type (WT) human vaginal epithelial cells (HVECs), CD40 knockout (KO) HVECs, and CD40-complemented (CO) HVECs treated for 6 h in triplicate with various dilutions of S. aureus MN8, MN8Δtst, and MNPE. (A) IL-8 ± standard deviations. *, significant mean differences between MN8 and MN8Δtst with P < 0.0001. (B) Percent wild type of HVEC CD40 knockout cells (KO) and CD40-complemented HVEC knockout cells (CO) treated with the dose of MN8 (MN8 1:10) that gave the peak IL-8 response by wild-type cells. TSST-1 was used at 50 μg/mL as a control.