Figure 2

Percentage of infected mice, pulmonary bacterial burden and level of leukocyte recruitment (CD45⁺ cells) during chronic P. aeruginosa lung infection in resistant and susceptible mice.

Susceptible A/J and resistant C3H/HeOuJ mice were inoculated with 2 × 10⁶ CFU of P. aeruginosa mucoid clinical isolate AA43 embedded in agar beads by intratracheal injection and sacrificed at day 2, 7 and 14 post challenge. At each time point, the clearance (white) or rate of chronic colonization (colored) (A) and the bacterial burden in the lungs (B) were evaluated. Dots represent CFU per lung in individual mice and horizontal lines represent median values reported in log scale (B). Leukocytes (CD45⁺ cells) were measured in lung cell suspension by flow cytometric analysis (C). The error bars represent the SEM (C). The data are pooled from two to three independent experiments. Statistical significance by Fisher’s test followed by Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons (A), and Mann-Whitney U test and nonparametric Kruskal-Wallis test followed by post-hoc Dunn test to correct for multiple comparisons (B,C) is indicated: *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001. Colored stars indicate the statistical significance of the difference between each mouse strain at the specific time point compared with its own naïve counterpart.