FIG. 2.

Pretreatment with IP-10 and MCP-1 reduces parasite burdens in Mφs. BM-Mφs of BALB/c, C57BL/6, or C3H/HeJ mice were seeded into 24-well plates (3 × 10⁵ cells/coverslip/well). Cells were left untreated or treated with either IP-10 (100 ng/ml), MCP-1 (100 ng/ml), or LPS (20 ng/ml) plus IFN-γ (20 ng/ml) for 4 h prior to infection with 2.4 × 10⁶ stationary-phase promastigotes (at an 8:1 parasite-to-cell ratio). All groups of cells were subsequently stained for parasites, using pooled sera from infected mice and FITC-conjugated goat anti-mouse IgG. The nuclei of the cells were stained with DAPI. Images of 10 random fields per condition were taken for counting of parasite loads. Data are presented as numbers of parasites per 100 Mφs and are shown as means ± standard deviations (SD) for three independent experiments (representing 30 fields per condition). Each group was compared to untreated controls (*, P < 0.5; **, P < 0.01; ***, P < 0.001).