Figure 1

Time course of intracellular amastigote population size increase and MΦ culture imaging. A: time course experiment showing the evolution of the amastigote population within MΦ. Mean number of amastigotes per MΦ were plotted against the time points selected. Ten microscope fields split up into biological duplicates were visualized and more than 200 MΦ nuclei were counted. B: L. amazonensis-housing bone marrow-derived MΦ imaged 24 h post amastigote (4 parasites per MΦ) addition. Nuclei were stained with Hoechst (blue) and amastigote with 2A3.26 mAb and Texas Red-labelled conjugate (red). Image acquisition was performed using an immunofluorescence and differential interference contrast inverted microscope (Zeiss Axiovert 200 M). Asterisk: Parasitophorous vacuoles; arrow heads: Amastigotes.