Fig 5. Effect of overexpressing the cardiolipin binding protein, C11orf83, on chlamydial growth and morphology.

(A) Schematic of the expected localization of each C11orf83 (c11) construct when expressed in chlamydiae. IM = inner membrane; Cls_TM = first 25 residues of Cls fused to c11; OppB_TM = first TM domain of E. coli OppB fused to c11 (or mCherry). (B) Cells were infected with C. trachomatis L2 transformants carrying anhydrotetracycline (aTc) inducible plasmids and encoding the indicated constructs. Expression of each was induced or not at 8hpi with 2 or 10nM aTc as indicated, and cells were fixed and processed for immunofluorescence at 24hpi as described in the legend to S3 Fig. Images were acquired on a Zeiss AxioImager.Z2 equipped with an Apotome2 using a 100X lens objective. Images are representative of at least three independent experiments. Scalebar = 2 μm (C) Cells were infected with the indicated transformants and processed as described in the legend to S3 Fig to quantify IFU production during the primary infection. For each transformant, the uninduced values were arbitrarily set to 100%, and the effect of overexpression at either 2nM or 10nM aTc when added at 4hpi is expressed as a percentage of the uninduced control. Samples were collected at 24hpi. Data are the average of three independent experiments performed in triplicate. * = p<0.05; ** = p<0.001.