Figure 10.

Depletion of MDSCs reduces fungal loads and tissue injury at the chronic phase of the disease and reduces mortality rates of P. brasiliensis-infected mice. C57BL/6 WT mice were infected i.t. with 1×10⁶ yeasts cells of P. brasiliensis. After 24 hours, 1 week, and 7 weeks of infection a group of mice received intraperitoneal injections of anti-Gr1 (clone RB6-8C5) or rat IgG2b isotype (200 µg/dose). Colony-forming unit (CFU) counts from lungs, liver, and spleen were determined 96 hours, 2 weeks, and 8 weeks after P. brasiliensis infection (A). Photomicrographs of lung lesions of control and anti-Gr1-depleted mice at week 8 of infection. Lesions were stained with hematoxylin-eosin (top panels) and Grocott (bottom panels) (B). Total area of lesions in the lungs at 8 weeks of infection. (C). Survival curves of MDSCs-depleted and control infected mice were determined for a period of 120 days (D). The bars represent means ± standard errors of the mean (SEM) of log10 CFU counts obtained from groups of 3–4 mice. For comparisons between two groups, the mean ± SEM was obtained and analyzed by the unpaired Student’s t-test. Differences were considered significant when: *p<0.05; **p<0.01 and ***p<0.001.