Figures & data
Figure 1 Transplantation of BMC decreases inflammation and fibrosis in hearts of C57Bl/6 mice chronically infected with Colombian strain T. cruzi. Mice were infected with 1,000 trypomastigote forms of Colombian strain T. cruzi. Inflammation (A) and fibrosis (B) were quantified in heart sections of normal mice, mice 8 months after infection injected with saline (Saline) or with bone marrow cells (BMC), stained with H&E and Sirius red. Bars represent the means ± SEM of 5–8 animals/group at six months after infection. *p < 0.05; ***p < 0.001. Heart sections of chagasic mice injected with saline (C) or with BMC (D), stained with H&E (original magnification ×40).
Figure 2 Significantly regulated genes in BMC-untreated (injected with saline) (A) and BMC-treated (B) infected hearts with respect to controls. A substantial reduction in the number of regulated genes was observed in treated hearts. Significantly regulated immune response genes in untreated (vertical axis) and treated (horizontal axis) (C). Symbols of certain regulated genes were written close to their representative points. Note that, while the upregulation of ifitm1 and psca was reduced by treatment, the regulation of all other immune response gene was fully recovered. However, lfi2712a and lfi2712b, whose expression was not significantly altered by the infection, were found as downregulated in treated hearts.
Figure 3 Quantification of galectin-3, syndecan-4 and vWF. Expression of galectin-3 (A), syndecan-4 (B and C) and vWF (D) were quantified by immunohistochemistry and morphometric analysis in heart sections of normal or eight month chagasic mice that had been injected at six months after infection with saline (Saline) or with bone marrow cells (BMC). Bars represent the means ± SEM of 3 animals/group. *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001.
Figure 4 Expression of galectin-3 and syndecan-4 in hearts of chronic chagasic mice treated with bone marrow cells. Heart sections of normal mice (A and B), of mice injected with saline (C and D) or with BMC (E and F). Sections were stained (red) with anti-galectin-3 (A, C and E) or anti-syndecan-4 (B, D and F). Nuclei (blue) were stained with DAPI. Scale bars: 50 µm (original magnification ×40).
