Fig. 8.

Hesperadin drug inhibits the in vitro growth of T. gondii at low concentrations. a Plaque assays were carried out by infecting HFF monolayers with RH-Δku80 strain in the presence of DMSO, barasertib at 800 nM and hesperadin drug at various concentrations ranging from 15 to 100 nM for 7 days. The HFF were stained with Giemsa. b The area of 30 plaques formed in the presence of each compound tested at single dose or at different concentrations was measured using ImageJ software. Values are means ± standard deviations. c Intracellular growth of RH-Δku80 strain cultivated in the presence of DMSO or hesperadin drug at different concentrations (15, 30, 40, 50 and 75 nM for 24 h). The percentages of vacuoles containing varying numbers of parasites are represented on the y-axis. Values are mean ± SD for three independent experiments. d The treatment of parasites in the presence of hesperadin drug affects their intracellular growth and results in formation of nucleus-deficient parasites. IFA performed on intracellular parasites of the RH-Δku80 strain shows an IMC marker (TgIMC1, red) and nuclei stained by DAPI. In the presence of hesperadin drug for 24 h, nucleus-deficient parasites appear, whereas normal nucleus segregation is observed in the presence of DMSO for RH-Δku80 strain, as expected. White asterisks indicate the parasites lacking nuclei