Fig. 3: LmexCen^−/− parasites do not lead to lesion development in immunocompromised mice.

For this experiment, STAT1^−/− and STAT4^−/− female mice were inoculated in the footpad with 10 × 10⁶ LmexWT or LmexCen^−/− promastigotes in the stationary phase. a, b Lesion thickness in footpad of STAT1^−/− (a) and STAT4^−/− (b) mice. c, e Representative footpad of STAT1^−/− (c) and STAT4^−/− (e) mice inoculated with LmexWT promastigotes at 16 weeks post infection (wpi). d, f Representative footpad of STAT1^−/− (d) and STAT4^−/− (f) mice inoculated with LmexCen^−/− promastigotes at 24 wpi. g, i Footpad parasitic burden of STAT1^−/− (g) and STAT4^−/− (i) mice. h, j Lymph node parasitic burden of STAT1^−/− (h) and STAT4^−/− (j) mice. Data show one representative experiment out of two independent experiments and show mean ± SEM, N = 4 for each group at each time point. Unpaired two-tailed Student’s t-test was performed to compare statistical significance at each time point. A P-value < 0.05 was considered significant. In all panels * represents P ≤ 0.05, ** represents P ≤ 0.01, and *** represents P ≤ 0.001.