Table 2.

Evaluation of treatment of infected macrophages. Murine macrophages (5 × 10⁵ cells) were cultured in complete RPMI 1640 medium for 24 h at 37 °C in 5% CO₂. After, cells were washed twice with PBS and L. infantum stationary promastigotes were added to the cultures at a ratio of 10 parasites per macrophage, for 48 h at 37 °C in 5% CO₂. Free parasites were removed by washing with RPMI 1640 medium, and infected macrophages were treated with b-AD (0, 3.09, 6.19 and 12.39 μM) or AmpB (0, 0.27, 0.54 and 1.08 μM) for 48 h at 24 °C in 5% CO₂. The percentage of infected cells, the infectiveness reduction, and the number of recovered amastigotes per cell were determined by counting 200 macrophages in triplicate. Results are shown as mean ± standard deviation of the groups.

Compound	Concentration (μM)	Percentage of infected macrophages after treatment	Infectiveness reduction (%)	Number of amastigotes per macrophage
β-acetyl-digitoxin	12.39	7.6 ± 1.2	89.0	0.1 ± 0
	6.19	14.3 ± 2.5	79.2	0.4 ± 0.2
	3.09	24.3 ± 3.3	64.6	1.2 ± 0.4
	0	68.7 ± 4.0	(–)	3.9 ± 0.5
Amphotericin B	1.08	19.8 ± 2.4	71.2	0.8 ± 0.4
	0.54	32.1 ± 3.8	53.3	1.3 ± 0.3
	0.27	42.5 ± 5.2	38.1	2.1 ± 0.4
	0	68.7 ± 4.0	(–)	3.9 ± 0.5