Fig. 2

a Pre- and post-operative White Blood Cell concentrations for groups 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. WBC was very high at day 7 in groups 3, 4 and 5 indicating occurrence of infection in these groups with significant difference as compared to day 7 between uninfected (1 and 2) and S. aureus infected (3, 4 and 5) groups. b Pre- and post-operative neutrophil percentages in experimental animals showing increased neutrophil counts at day 7 in S. aureus infected groups (3, 4 and 5) indicating the occurrence of bacterial infection in these groups (c) Pre- and post-operative monocyte percentages in experimental animals showing an increased monocyte counts at day 7 in S. aureus infected groups (3, 4 and 5). d Pre- and post-operative lymphocyte percentages in experimental animals showing a decrease in lymphocyte counts in S. aureus infected groups (3, 4 and 5) from day 7 till day 28. e Pre- and post-operative ESR levels in experimental animals showing a sharp increase in the S. aureus infected groups (3, 4 and 5) at day 7. Error bar represent the standard error of mean. ^a,b,cMeans with different superscripts are statistically significant once compared to respective day 0. Values are expressed as mean ± SEM and ^ap ≤ 0.001, ^bp ≤ 0.01, ^cp ≤ 0.05