Figure 5

Changes in Chlamydia -shedding. Mice treated with control Ab or anti-CCL5 Ab were infected with C. muridarum. The status of infection was monitored for live organism shedding by culturing periodic cervico-vaginal swabs from individual mice every week for 42 days after challenge. Chlamydia present in swabs were detected by infecting McCoy cells with vaginal swab rinses and staining infected monolayer with FITC-labeled, genus-specific, anti-Chlamydia Abs to count inclusion bodies (> 10 IFUs/ml) by direct immuno-fluorescence. BD indicates the presence of Chlamydiae was below this level of detection. Experiments were repeated 3 times to yield 15 mice per group. Asterisks (*) indicate statistically significant differences (p < 0.01) between untreated and control Ab- or anti-CCL5 Ab-treated mice.