Figure 1.

Extracellular ATP (eATP)-induced T. gondii control is dependent on NLRP3 and caspase-1/11 molecules. Bone marrow-derived macrophages from C57BL/6 (WT), NLRP3^−/− or Caspase-1/11^−/− mice were infected with T. gondii tachyzoites for 2 h and kept untreated, or were treated with 3 mM eATP for 30 min. Then, cells were incubated at 37°C for a total of 18 h, and stained with Panoptic, for light microscopy quantification of the percentage of infection (A) and the infection index (B). Treatment with eATP reduced the percentage of infected cells and the infection index in wild-type (C57BL/6) macrophages, but not in the knockout cells. Normalized data represent mean ± SEM of three independent experiments performed in triplicates. ***p ≤ 0.001 vs. untreated (by two-tailed t-test).