Fig. 2: Early cure of infection leads to durable restoration of normal GI transit function.

a Line plots show total GI transit time for control (n = 20), infected (n = 18, except n = 46 at 6 wpi), benznidazole (BZ) treated and cured (BZ-Cured; n = 14, except n = 15 at 12 and 18 wpi) and BZ-treated and relapsed (BZ-Relapsed; n = 13) C3H/HeN mice against weeks post-infection (wpi). Cream bar shows the BZ treatment window (6–9 wpi). b Bar plots show individual animal data for end-point (36 wpi) total GI transit time; control (n = 19), infected (n = 18), BZ-Cured (n = 14) and BZ-relapsed (n = 13). Control vs Infected p < 0.0001; Control vs BZ-Relapsed P = 0.002; Infected vs BZ-Cured p < 0.0001. c, d Bar plots show post-mortem number of faecal pellets (c) and dry faecal pellet weight (d, sum of all pellets) in the colon of control (n = 20), infected (n = 18), BZ-Cured (n = 14) and BZ-Relapsed (n = 13) mice after 4 h’ fasting. For (c) Control vs Infected p < 0.0001; Control vs BZ-Relapsed P = 0.0006. For (d) Control vs Infected P = 0.009; Control vs BZ-Relapsed P = 0.04. e Images of control, infected, BZ-Cured and BZ-Relapsed mouse large intestine and retained faecal pellets after 4 h’ fasting at 36 wpi. Scale bar = 2 cm. f Representative proximal colon basal contractile traces from organ bath contractility assay for each experimental group. g, h Bar plots show basal contraction frequency and amplitude respectively of control (n = 13), infected (n = 6), BZ-Cured (n = 3) and BZ-Relapsed (n = 3) mice. For (g) Control vs Infected P = 0.023; Infected vs BZ-Relapsed P = 0.002; Infected vs BZ-Cured P = 0.014. Data are expressed as mean ± SEM. Statistical significance was tested using one-way ANOVA followed by Tukey’s HSD test. Only significant differences are annotated: *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001, **** P < 0.0001.