Fig. 2: Psychological stress impairs host control of CD-associated AIEC.

a Schematic representation of infection and stress protocol. b AIEC fecal burdens collected from control (n = 8) and stress (n = 7) exposed mice at the time of stress (or overnight starvation), and at 6 and 24 h post-stress. Stress-exposed mice were compared to matched controls by a two-way ANOVA, not corrected for multiple comparisons, p = 0.0194. c Mice were colonized with AIEC and subjected to either overnight stress (n = 8) or starvation (n = 4) for 16 h weekly for 4 weeks. Fecal samples were collected at the time of stress (or overnight starvation), and at 6 h and 24 h post-stress. d AIEC tissue burdens collected from the length of the intestinal tract from control (n = 8) and stress (n = 8) mice. The small intestine was divided into four 8 cm segments in which segment 4 is adjacent to the cecum. Stress-exposed mice were compared to match controls by a two-tailed Mann–Whitney test, p values = 0.022067, 0.000932, 0.001088, 0.001865, 0.001088, 0.020202. e Taxonomy plot of 16S rRNA sequencing of ileum in AIEC-colonized naive (n = 3), starved (food and water depleted, n = 4), and restraint-stress (n = 4) exposed mice. f Shannon diversity index and principal component analysis of ileal 16S rRNA sequencing from AIEC-colonized naive (n = 3), starved (n = 4) and stress (n = 4) mice. For Shannon Diversity Index, significance between starved and stressed mice, p = 0.0004 was determined by one-way ANOVA. Box plot represents median and 25th and 75th percentiles—interquartile range; IQR—and whiskers extend to maximum and minimum values, adjusted for multiple comparisons. g Schematic representation of DSS treatment schedule. The graph depicts weight change from the time of DSS initiation (all groups are n = 4) (*p ≤ 0.05; **p ≤ 0.01; ***p ≤ 0.001). Error bars represent SEM and the line in CFU graphs indicates the geometric mean of the group.