Figure 7.

Pulmonary fungal burden and survival curve of iNOS KO mice infected with C. gattii. (a) AMJ2-C11 macrophages (5 × 10⁵cells/ml) were treated with L-NMMA (1 mM) or medium alone for 4 h, and these cells were infected with C. gattii (5 × 10³cells/ml). After 24 h, the monolayer culture was detached and combined with supernatant to quantify the growth of C. gattii by the CFU assay. (b and c) C57BL/6 mice (genetic background control) and iNOS KO mice were infected i.n. with 10⁴ C. gattii yeasts. Pulmonary fungal burdens are expressed as CFU/mg organ mass and were measured after 14 d of infection. (b) The fungal burden of these mice is compared to that in C57BL/6 mice. (a and b) The results are expressed as means ± SD (SEM). (c) For survival curves, the mortality rate was monitored daily and is expressed as a percentage. Differences were considered significant when *P < 0.05 and **P < 0.01 relative to uninfected controls.