Alleviation of Rex repression promotes bacterial invasion of Caco-2 epithelial cells and Huh7 hepatocytes.

The ability of L. monocytogenes strains to invade Caco-2 epithelial cells (A) and Huh7 hepatocytes (B) was evaluated. Bacterial invasion was measured 2 hours post-infection and 1 hour after adding gentamicin to kill extracellular bacteria. Invasion was normalized to the initial inocula and is reported as a percentage of wt. In panel A, data are the means and SEMs of 5 independent experiments performed in duplicate. In panel B, data are the means and SEMs of 3 independent experiments performed in duplicate. p values were calculated using a heteroscedastic Student’s t test. * p < 0.05; ** p < 0.01; *** p < 0.001. No statistical significance was found between strains lacking inlAB.