IL6 and infection: As expected, the presence or absence of externally added acetate did not result in statistically significant (p<0.05) changes in IL-6, IL-8 and IL-1β gene expression in uninfected tissue cells (Fig 8A), and we also observed the typical increase in transcription of IL-6, IL-8 and IL-1β genes following infection with live Hi2019WT (17-, 14- and 6.5-fold compared to the uninfected tissue cells) (Fig 8A).