Fig 7. Inhibition of ROS production in macrophages impairs T. cruzi proliferation.

Inflammatory macrophages from C57BL/6 WT and Phox KO mice were incubated with 300μM of apocynin (APO), 1mM of N-acetyl-cysteine (NAC), 25U of superoxide dismutase-polyethylene glycol (SOD) and catalase-polyethylene glycol (CAT) 2 hours before the infection with different parasites. Parasites were added for another 2 hours, the cells were washed to remove extracellular parasites, and ROS inhibitors were added back to the cultures. (A,B) Slides were stained and counted to determine the infection index 72 hours after infection. A minimum of 200 macrophages were counted per group in triplicates. The number of Y strain parasites (C, D) and TcWT, TcMTH (E) in supernatants was quantified four days after infection (C) or between the third and sixth day after infection (D, E). Data shown are representative one of three independent experiments performed in triplicates. All data are presented as the means ± standard deviation. In A, bars labeled with different letters are statistically different, same letters indicate that the values are not different statistically. * indicates statistical differences between marked bars (B,C) or between apocynin-treated and non-treated cultures (D, E). Means were considered different if p<0.05, by two-way ANOVA test and Bonferroni post-test.