Fig. 4: Effective volume within colonies.
From: Capsules and their traits shape phage susceptibility and plasmid conjugation efficiency
A Differences in effective volume (μm3/CFU) between serotype swaps and Δcps mutants. Individual points represent the mean effective volume for each mutant (n = 4), while the boxplots are drawn from all the observations. We assessed statistical differences between volumes with an ANOVA followed by a Tukey’s honest significant difference (HSD) test. The strain, genotype and their interaction significantly influenced the effective volume. All comparisons between genotypes were significantly different (K3 vs Delta, p < 0.001; K2 vs K24, p = 0.004; K1 vs K2, p = 0.004), except K24 and K3 (p = 0.85). Genotypes were ranked according to the median effective volume. Boxes represent the first quartile (Q1), median (line), third quartile (Q3), while whiskers represent the Q1–IQR*1.5 and Q3 + IQR*1.5 (IQR, inter-quartile range). Effective volume positively correlates with amount of capsule quantity (Supplementary Fig. S1A). B Mean effective volume vs. mean log10-transformed conjugation efficiencies of recipients (from E1 and E2 combined). Points correspond to distinct capsule states in the recipient strain. Colour corresponds to the strains as in (A). Lines represent linear regressions for each chassis strain between the log10-transformed conjugation efficiency and the average effective volume (EV). The linear mixed model of the log10 transformed conjugation efficiency using the effective volume as a fixed effect and the chassis strain identity as a random effect showed a significant effect of the volume (F test, F = 45, p < 0.001, Statistics 6, Text S2). Source data are provided as a Source Data file 6 (Volume) and Source Data file 7 (Volume vs. recipient conjugation). *p < 0.05; ***p < 0.001; ns p > 0.05.
