Fig 6. Oxfendazole treatment during patent L. sigmodontis infection demonstrates macrofilaricidal efficacy and inhibits embryogenesis in jirds.
Microfilariae-positive jirds were treated 12 weeks post-infection (wpi) twice daily orally (PO) with 5 (n = 4) or 12.5 mg/kg (n = 5) oxfendazole (OXF) for a total of 10 consecutive days or subcutaneously with 2 mg/kg flubendazole (FBZ; n = 3) for 5 consecutive days. Untreated animals (n = 6) served as negative controls and necropsies were performed on all animals 16 weeks post-treatment (wpt). (A) L. sigmodontis adult worm burden at necropsy and (B) peripheral blood microfilariae levels over time. (C) Embryograms of female adult worms isolated from untreated (n = 8) and oxfendazole (n = 10) treated jirds (10 days, BID, 5 mg/kg) showing the total number of eggs, morulae, pretzel and stretched microfilariae per female worm. (A, C) Medians of one representative of two independent experiments are shown. (B) Means ± SEM of one representative of two independent are shown. (A) Kruskal-Wallis H-test: χ2 = 10.62, df = 3, p = 0.004 followed by Dunn’s post-hoc test. (B) Two-way ANOVA: F(3, 252) = 24.29, p<0.0001 followed by Dunnett’s multiple comparison test. p<0.0001 for all treatment groups in comparison to untreated controls. (C) Kruskal-Wallis H-test: χ2 = 60.16, df = 7, p<0.0001 followed by Dunn’s multiple comparison test.