FIG 2.

Infection course and response to treatment in BALB/c mice infected with 500 trypomastigotes of T. cruzi. The mice were treated daily with 25 mg/kg benznidazole (BZ), aspirin (ASA), or a combination of BZ and ASA by oral gavage at 2 days postinfection for 30 days. The antagonist Boc-2 (10 μM/kg) was intraperitoneally injected from 1 day postinfection every 48 h for 7 days before ASA treatment. At 180 days postinfection, T. cruzi parasite loads in the hearts of treated and untreated mice were quantified by RT-qPCR. (A and B) Parasitemia levels in the acute phase of infection; (C and D) mouse survival rates; (E) cardiac parasite loads measured by RT-qPCR. *, P < 0.05 compared to the untreated infected group (PBS). Means with different letters are significantly different (P < 0.05, two-way ANOVA with Dunnett’s multiple-comparison posttest).