In Scramble shRNA-transfected epithelial cells (and similar to the un-transfected cells; not shown), ΔespZ infection caused perinuclear mitochondrial retraction, and increased abundance of small spheroid mitochondria that were associated with LC3, which was confirmed by an increased positive Pearson correlation coefficient (Figure 7c), suggestive of mitophagy. Here, MAP1LC3A is linked to infection.