Figure 5

Measurement of Candida albicans load in mice treated with different essential oils. The vaginal lumen of mice under pseudoestrus condition were infected with Candida albicans gLUC59 and then treated with the essential oils 2 h before the first challenge and then every two days. After 5, 7, 9, 15 and 21 days post-infection 6 mice per group were anaesthetized, imaged in the IVIS-200TM imaging system, and the vaginal lumen was thoroughly washed with 150 μl of saline using a mechanical pipette. The fungal burden of vaginal lavage fluids was determined by evaluating the colony forming units (CFU) assay.For CFU assay 50 μl of the lavage fluids were diluted and seeded in YPD agar plus chloramphenicol. Results were reported and the statistical significance was evaluated with the non-parametric Mann-Whitney U-test. *P < 0.05 (essential oil treated mice versus saline treated mice).