Table 3.

Inhibition of infection of macrophages. The inhibition of infection of murine macrophages using pre-treated parasites was performed by incubating L. infantum stationary promastigotes (5 × 10⁶ cells) with b-AD (0, 3.09, 6.19 and 12.39 μM) or AmpB (0, 0.27, 0.54 and 1.08 μM) for 4 h at 24 °C. Parasites were then washed in RPMI 1640 and used to infect murine cells at a ratio of 10 parasites per macrophage, for 48 h at 37 °C in 5% CO₂. The percentage of infected macrophages, the infectiveness reduction, and the number of amastigotes per treated macrophage were evaluated by counting 200 macrophages in triplicate. Results are shown as mean ± standard deviation of the groups.

Compound	Concentration (μM)	Infection percentage using pre-treated parasites	Infectiveness reduction (%)	Number of amastigotes per macrophage
β-acetyl-digitoxin	12.39	8.8 ± 2.0	84.8	0.2 ± 0.1
	6.19	13.3 ± 2.4	77.0	0.7 ± 0.3
	3.09	27.4 ± 4.0	52.6	1.6 ± 0.5
	0	57.8 ± 5.2	(–)	3.3 ± 0.6
Amphotericin B	1.08	18.4 ± 2.6	68.2	0.7 ± 0.3
	0.54	26.5 ± 2.7	54.2	1.2 ± 0.3
	0.27	38.7 ± 4.3	33.0	2.2 ± 0.4
	0	57.8 ± 5.2	(–)	3.3 ± 0.6