Figure 9.

Cruzipain is required during T. cruzi infection into the host cell. (A) Immunofluorescence of cruzipain distribution in metacyclic trypomastigotes. Parasites’ boundaries are depicted by white dashed lines. Scale bar: 5 µm. (B) Representative scheme of the infection protocol. (C) Percentage of the infected cell (after 6 h) by trypomastigotes pretreated with the maintenance medium (DMEM or PBS) in the presence or not of autophagy inhibitors (Baf or Wort), broad-spectrum protease inhibitors (Prot Inh) or with K777 drug for 2 h. Data are shown as mean ± error of three independent experiments. A total of 100 cells per group for each experiment were quantified. P values were calculated using the One-way ANOVA test. (*) p ≤ 0.05, (**) p ≤ 0.01, (***) p ≤ 0.001