NleC suppresses inflammatory responses in <i>C</i>. <i>rodentium</i>-infected mice.

<p><b>A</b>. Representative immunofluorescence micrographs of <i>C</i>. <i>rodentium</i> LPS, with nuclei counterstained by DAPI, in colon sections derived from C57BL/6 mice 8 days post inoculation with the indicated strains of <i>C</i>. <i>rodentium</i>. Scale bars, 10 μm. Lu indicates the colon luminal space. <b>B</b>. Quantitative PCR (qPCR) was used to determine mRNA levels of indicated cytokine/chemokine genes relative to <i>Actb</i> (β-actin) in the colons collected from C57BL/6 mice 14 days post inoculation with wild-type or <i>ΔnleC</i> mutant strain of <i>C</i>. <i>rodentium</i>. <b>C-D</b>. Immunofluorescence micrographs of CD11b⁺ inflammatory immune cells in the colons collected from C57BL/6 mice as in B, with nuclei counterstained by DAPI. Scale bars, 10 μm. The colon-infiltrated inflammatory immune cells (from 5 random fields) with CD11b staining were quantified (D). <b>E</b>. Hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) staining of colons collected from C57BL/6 mice as in D. Scale bars, 200 μm. <b>F</b>. The histopathology scores of colon sections derived from mice infected as indicated as in D. Shown are mean ± s.e.m of 10 random fields from two independent experiments.