Figure 3.
IL-27 favors L. infantum infection in mice models. (A) BALB/c (circles) and C57BL/6 (squares) mice were i.p. infected with 1 × 108 promastigotes. Twenty-four hours later, BALB/c mice were treated i.p. with 20 μg of a-IL-27 (gray circles) or IgG isotype control (open circles), while C57BL/6 received i.p. 1 μg of mouse rIL-27 (gray squares) or the same volume of PBS (open squares). Three days after treatment, mice were euthanized and the parasite load of spleen and liver determined by limiting dilution. (B) In some animals, the peritoneal cavity was washed for collection of recruited cells. Approximately 2 × 105 cells from every exudate were cytospined, fixed, and stained with Kaplow modified solution and by the Giemsa method. Finally, slides were observed by optical microscopy at 100× for determination of the percentage of infected cells and the number of parasites/infected cell. All data represent results obtained in three independent experiments. Every symbol represents a mouse and the bars the mean of the group. Unpaired t-test was used to assess statistical significances (*p ≤ 0.05, **p ≤ 0.01, and ***p ≤ 0.001).