Fig. 1

Assessment of intron stability in vivo using a mouse infection model. BALB/c mice were infected intravaginally with DFCT3 (incA::GII[bla]) in the absence of ampicillin and swabs were taken at 3 day intervals to measure EB titers (IFU/ml), panel a [19]. To measure intron-stability, swabs were used to infect mouse L2 cells in the absence of ampicillin and serially passaged to obtain DNA for incA PCR (reaction 1, Table 1) and to assess inclusion morphology. Representative incA PCR results are shown in panel a. In panel b, representative phase contrast micrographs (×400) are shown for cells infected at an MOI of ~5 with the wild type strain or with an expansion sample from a day 27 post-infection swab. The red arrow highlights a wild type inclusion