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. 2012 Oct 26;7(10):e48110. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0048110

Figure 1. Co-infected mice are more refractory to Plasmodium sporozoite infection but exacerbate tuberculosis.

Figure 1

C57BL/6 mice were aerosol infected with M. tuberculosis H37Rv (100 CFU/lung) and 40 days later challenged with PbNK65 sporozoites by mosquito bite. Control mice were infected with M. tuberculosis or PbNK65 alone, respectively. A) Mice were sacrificed 12 days after co-infection and serial dilutions of lung and spleen lysates were plated for CFU determination. B) Parasitemia in peripheral blood was monitored by daily Giemsa-stained blood smears. Note, that co-infected animals had significantly lower parasite numbers than mice infected with PbNK65 alone. Results are shown as means ± SD (n = 10). C) Weight loss was reduced when mice were pre-infected with M. tuberculosis before PbNK65 challenge. Results are shown as means ± SD (n = 10). Results from one representative experiment out of two independent ones are shown. Statistical analysis was performed using the Student’s t test (A) or ANOVA (B and C) (*p<0.05; **p<0.01; *** p<0.001).