Fig. 4: Pre-treatment of C57BL/6 mice with phage VAC3 protects C57BL/6 mice from lethal infection with P. aeruginosa PA14 strain.

a Weight loss of mice during the first 24 h of pretreatment with phages and the following 48 h after infection with P. aeruginosa PA14 strain. The red arrow indicates the moment in which P. aeruginosa PA14 was administered to the mice. b Clinical sign scores in bacteriophages-treated mice after infection with P. aeruginosa PA14 strain 24- and 48-h post-infection with P. aeruginosa. Note that the 24 h and 48 h time points are counted after the administration of P. aeruginosa PA14. c Survival curve of phage-treated mice after infection with P. aeruginosa PA14 strain. The mice were monitored for 48 h after infection or until reaching a clinical score of 15 or death. The numbers of deaths and survivors were recorded. Note that the VAC1 and VAC3 curves are superposed (no death in both groups). d Quantification of colony forming units in the lungs of phage-treated mice after infection with P. aeruginosa PA14 strain. ND not detected. The graph shows the average and SD of each group comprised of four mice. The individual replicates plus SD are shown in (b) and (d). **Significance of p < 0.01 compared to PA14 group. *Significance of p < 0.05 compared to PA14 group. All groups had 4 mice (n = 4). The results were analyzed using Kruskal–Wallis non-parametric ANOVA for (a, b and d). Survival curves c were analyzed using Log-rank (Mantel–Cox) test.