FIG. 6.

Macrophages from OPN-null mice are more permissive to the viability and growth of BCG in vitro. Infections were performed as described in Materials and Methods. The data are mean counts per minute ± standard errors of quadruplicate cultures; error bars that are not visible are smaller than the symbol for that data point. Time 0 represents the time that the wells were washed after the 4-h infection, the time of the first tritium pulse. The BCG cultured with spp1^tm1 PEC grew exponentially (solid squares) (R² = 0.98). The BCG cultured with wild-type PEC grew linearly (solid circles) (R² = 0.92). The 95% confidence limits for the best fit lines did not overlap beyond 60 h. No significant [³H]uracil incorporation was observed with wild-type PEC (open circles) or spp1^tm1 PEC (open squares) in the absence of BCG. Similar results were seen in two independent experiments.