Fig. 8
T. gondii intracellular proliferation and cytokine production in human villous explants treated with chalcones. (A) Villous explants were infected with T. gondii tachyzoites and treated with C2, C4, C9 (32 and 64 µg/mL), S + P (150 + 200 µg/mL, respectively) or culture medium only for 24 h. The percentages of T. gondii intracellular proliferation were measured using the β-galactosidase assay and compared with infected/untreated explants (M), considered as 100% of parasite proliferation, and positive control (S + P). B, C: After treatments, supernatants were collected for measurement of (B) MIF and (C) TNF-α. Cytokine levels were expressed in pg/mg of tissue. Data are expressed as means ± SEM of three independent experiments performed in eight replicates. *Comparison between untreated and treated villi. #Comparison to S + P-treated cells. &Comparison between uninfected/treated and infected/treated explants. Significant differences were analyzed using (*;#) One-Way ANOVA with Dunnett’s multiple comparison post-test and (&) Unpaired Student´s t-test (two-tailed). Differences were considered as statistically significant when P < 0.05.
