Figure 1.
Morphology of Taenia taeniaeformis.
(A) Taenia cyst covered the entire liver; (B) Taenia taeniaeformis larva with large scolex, long neck and pseudo segmentation of entire body length with terminal bulged portion. (C) Histology of a Taenia cyst revealed armed rostellum characterized by 2 rows of hooks and four suckers.
Figure 2.
Lesions of the co-infected group (A) and fungus-infected group (B): 1–3 showed the 2nd, 3rd and 5th weeks post-inoculation (PI).
Table 1.
Sizes of skin lesions in rat with co-infection, fungal-infection alone, and no infection (control group).
Figure 3.
Histopathologic examinations by H&E (1 and 2) and PAS (3) in co-infection group.
A1, B1 and C1 showed different lever of suppurative granulomatous inflammation in the dermis tissue at the 2nd, 3rd and 5th weeks(×100); A2, B2 and C2 showed most of the inflammatory cells were histocytes and epithelioid cells around necrosis center (×400); A3, B3 and C3 showed S. schenckii cells (arrow) at the 2nd, 3rd and 5th weeks (×400).
Figure 4.
Histopathologic examinations by H&E (1 and 2) and PAS (3) in fungus-infection group.
A1, B1 and C1 showed different level of suppurative granulomatous inflammation in the dermis tissue at the 2nd, 3rd and 5th weeks(×100); A2, B2 and C2 showed multinucleated giant cells (arrow) were formed except histocytes and epithelioid cells around necrosis center (×400); A3 and B3 showed S. schenckii cells (arrow) in multinucleated giant cells at the 2nd, 3rd, and no S. schenckii cell was observed in C3 at the 5th weeks PI (×400).
Figure 5.
Dectin-1 immunohistochemical staining of skin lesions from the co-infected group (A) and fungus-infected group (B).
A1–A2 showed a lot of positive cells in the lesion and mainly gathered in the tuberculosis-like layer. B1–B2 showed no positive cells.
Figure 6.
Cytokines IFN-γ, IL-10 and IL-17 released during S. schenckii infection and co-infection with Taenia taeniaeformis (A, B and C).
IFN-γ and IL-10 (A and B) productions occurred in large amounts in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd weeks after S. schenckii infection in fungus-infected group, and reached the peak in the 2nd week PI. IL-17 productions (C) of the co-infected group. There was a significant difference between the two groups for IL-17 levels (P<0.05).