CP and infection: Although the decrease in bacterial load of KO strain after 14 days of macrophage infection was shown to be statistically significant (p < 0.05) when compared with CP strain, the analysis of the area under the curve revealed very similar intracellular bacterial growth for WT (total area mean ± standard error of the mean: 23.25 ± 0.47), KO (23.32 ± 0.27), or CP (23.06 ± 0.11) strains.