Figure 2. mCherry gene is functionally expressed in L. major parasites.

Wild type (WT), pLEXSY episomal- (EPI) and integrated- (IN) mCherry expressing promastigotes were grown in the presence of hygromycin B and fluorescence levels were measured by flow cytometry. A) Histogram plot representative of the distribution of mCherry fluorescence levels in different populations of cells. B) Mean fluorescence intensity emitted by WT and the engineered parasite strains. The fluorescence is expressed as arbitrary units (AU). C) Correlation between fluorescence signal and the number of logarithmic promastigotes (•), metacyclic promastigotes (○) and freshly isolated amastigotes (▴) of mCherry+L. major. Two-fold serial dilutions were applied and parasites were counted using a Coulter counter.