Animal infection experiments.

<p><b>(A)</b> Bacterial enumeration during animal systemic infection. Groups of six 8-week-old ICR mice were infected intraperitoneally with a sublethal dose bacterial suspension of 2.0 × 10⁶ CFUs. Bacteria were recovered from blood, brains, lungs, liver and spleen at 24 h post infection. <b>(B)</b> Bacterial enumeration in rat neonatal meningitis model. At 5 days of age, groups of five SPF Sprague-Dawley rat pups were inoculated intraperitoneally with a bacterial suspension containing 10⁷ CFUs. At 18 h after bacterial inoculation, blood and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) specimens were obtained for quantitative cultures. Nonparametric Mann-Whitney U-Test was carried out for statistical significance analysis. * <i>p</i> < 0.05.