Figure 3.

Hepatocyte permissiveness to rodent parasites differentially depends on AQP9 according to parasite/host cell combinations. (A) sihRNA-transfected human hepatocytes (HHs) were infected with sporozoites three days post-transfection and cultured for two days until EEF quantification. EEF values are expressed as a percentage of those in control sihCD92-transfected hepatocytes. *p = 0.0001. (B) Three days post lentiviral transduction, HHs overexpressing GFP protein, hCD81, or hAQP9 were cultured for two days until EEF quantification. EEF numbers are expressed as a percentage of those in control GFP-transduced hepatocytes. *p = 0.0079. (C, D) Primary hepatocytes isolated from wild-type (WT) and AQP9 knockout (AQP9-/-) mice were infected with P. berghei or P. yoelii. Sporozoite cell entry was evaluated 3 h post-infection using double immunostaining (C), whereas EEF quantification was performed after 48 h of culture (D). Penetration rates and EEF numbers are expressed as a percentage of those in control WT hepatocytes. *p = 0.05; **p = 0.0018; ***p = 0.0004. The results are expressed as the mean ± standard deviation. p values were determined by Mann-Whitney U test.