Morphological appearance of <i>Salmonella</i> vacuoles.

<p>BMDMs were infected with various <i>Salmonella</i> strains. At 12 h p.i., cells were fixed and processed for characterization of the vacuoles. (A–C) Morphological appearance of the various <i>sifA⁻sopD2⁻pipB2⁻</i> vacuoles. (A) View of a normal SCV. Lysosomes (Ly) do not fuse with this compartment. (B) A lysosome (Ly) is seen fusing with an SCV to form a phagolysosome (PhLy). In this PhLy, the bacterium is still morphologically intact. (C) View of an autophagic vacuole (AV). Cytoplasmic material (star) and bacteria can be seen in the AV, which also contains dense lysosomal material (arrowhead). Arrows indicate the membrane of the AV. Scale bar: 0.5 µm (A and B), 1,5 µm (C). (D) The fraction of bacteria enclosed in the different types of compartments as shown in A, B and C or in the cytosol was scored.