Figure 4.

Antileishmanial effect of H. pectinata, A. vera, and R. graveolens against L. amazonensis amastigotes and the infection of macrophages. The height of the bars indicates the parasite number at each concentration of plant aqueous extract compared with the control experiment containing only the solvent DMSO. The numbers of infected macrophages (a) and intracellular amastigotes (b) were evaluated after the 3-day incubation with the plant extracts (10 μg/mL). Macrophages were infected with L. amazonensis promastigotes for 3 h. After infection, the plant aqueous extracts were added at a final concentration of 10 μg/mL for 3 days. Coverslips were washed, fixed, and stained, and the percentage of infected macrophages, noninfected macrophages, and intracellular amastigotes forms was determined by counting at least 100 cells/coverslip in triplicate on glass coverslips. Data are reported as the means ± S.E.M. Differences with P values <0.05 were considered significant.