Fig. 7

Anti-TNF treatment of Trypanosoma cruzi-infected mice reduces the number of parasite nests in the CNS. C3H/He mice were infected with 100 blood trypomastigotes of the Colombian strain. a Tnf mRNA expression in brain tissue was detected by RT-PCR, and serum TNF concentrations were detected by ELISA. Hprt was used as a housekeeping gene. b Acutely T. cruzi-infected mice were treated at 48-h intervals with the anti-TNF neutralizing antibody infliximab (10 μg/mouse) from 14 to 28 dpi and analyzed at 30 dpi using immunohistochemistry to detect T. cruzi antigen-positive areas in the brains of 5–8 animals per group. Data are presented as the means ± SEM of triplicates. ^** p < 0.01, ^*** p < 0.001 NI vs. T. cruzi-infected mice. Asterisk untreated (NT) vs. anti-TNF-treated infected mice; ^# p < 0.05 vehicle-injected (Veh) vs. anti-TNF-treated infected mice