Intracellular Survival of Leishmania major Depends on Uptake and Degradation of Extracellular Matrix Glycosaminoglycans by Macrophages
Fig 5
Intracellular ∆gnat parasites are rescued by exogenous GlcNAc sources.
(A) RAW 264.7 macrophages were infected with wild type (WT) and ∆gnat stationary promastigotes in the presence of either GlcNAc, hyaluronic acid (HA) or chitin. Intracellular growth was determined after fixation and staining with the DNA dye, Hoechst, and is expressed relative to parasite numbers at day four of untreated cells (whereby WT contained 67 +/- 8 parasites and ∆gnat 26 +/- 4 parasites). Error bars are the SD from three biological repeat experiments and p-values were calculated by the Student’s t-test. (B) WT and (C) ∆gnat promastigotes were cultured in the presence of GlcNAc, HA or chitin as the sole hexose source and growth was determined by OD600.