MutT expression enhances <i>in vitro</i> intracellular growth.

Murine fibroblasts were exposed to trypomastigotes (MOI of 50) for 30 minutes. Monolayers were washed to remove extracellular parasites and either fixed (PFA 4%) or incubated with fresh medium without parasites for different times. Slides were stained by immunofluorescence and analyzed in fluorescence microscope. (A) Parasites infectivity was determined by counting the number of internalized trypomastigotes per 100 cells right after cell exposure to parasites. (B) Parasitophorous vacuole escape kinetics were determined by analyzing the number of parasites co-localizing with LAMP, a lysosomal marker, at different time points for 16 hours after invasion. (C) Number of intracellular parasites per infected cell for WT, pROCK and MutT infected cultures from 24 up to 96 hours post-infection (*** P<0.001, * P<0.05, two-way ANOVA test with Bonferroni post-test). (D) Representative images of murine fibroblasts infected either with WT or MutT at an MOI of 50, cells and parasites DNA were labeled with DAPI.