Figure 7.

Leishmania spp. infection modulates levels of HO-1, ferritin and NO production in CBA BMMØ. Effect of L. amazonensis and L. major infection on HO-1 and ferritin protein levels, as well as NO production. BMMØ were infected or not with L. amazonensis or L. major, or incubated with purified LPG at 10 μg/mL from parasites from these species as described in Materials and Methods. (A,C,E) Cobalt protoporphyrin IX stimulation was used as positive control. Six or 24 h after infection, MØ were washed to remove extracellular parasites and protein levels were quantified by Western blotting. Actin was used as a loading control. (B,D,F) HO-1/actin and ferritin/actin fold increase ratios in comparison to control levels (dashed line), as determined by densitometry. Results shown in (B,D,F) are representative of three independent experiments. (G) Effect of L. amazonensis and L. major infection on HO-1 production by ELISA. Statistical differences were evaluated using the One-Way ANOVA Tukey's Multiple Comparison Test. ***p < 0.0001. Data are representative of means ± SE from five experiments. (H) Effect of L. amazonensis and L. major infection on BMMØ NO production. Macrophage NO production was measured by detecting nitrite in culture supernatants. Statistical differences were evaluated using the Student's t-test. ***p < 0.0001. Data are representative of means ± SE three independent experiments.