Fig 8. SufT is required in acute and chronic phase of infection in vivo.

(A) BALB/c mice (n = 6) were aerosol infected with SufT-KD strain at 200 CFU per lung at 0 day and divided into three groups of i) SufT-KD -DOX (no doxycycline treatment), ii) SufT-KD +DOX Acute (DOX started at 7 days after infection) and iii) SufT-KD +DOX Chronic (DOX started at 21 days after infection). Post infection six animals were sacrificed from each group on day 7, 21 and 42 and CFU load per lung was measured. (B) Gross pathology of lungs (upper panel) from SufT-KD -DOX and +DOX infected BALB/c mice was shown after 42 days of infection. White arrows indicate distinct granulomas. (C) Hematoxyline and eosin- stained lung sections after 42 days of infection. (D) Histo-pathological granuloma scoring of lung sections from–DOX and + DOX infected BALB/c mice. Student’s t test (two tailed) was performed to determine statistical significance as **p ≤ 0.01 and ***p≤0.001.