Ticks as potential vectors of Mycobacterium leprae: Use of tick cell lines to culture the bacilli and generate transgenic strains
Fig 6
Mycobacterium leprae is able to associate with different tick cell lines.
A) Histograms generated by flow cytometry showing association between M. leprae labelled with PKH67 and three tick cell lines: AVL/CTVM17, HAE/CTVM8 and IDE8. Gray lines represent uninfected tick cells and red lines represent cells associated with the fluorescent bacilli. B) Quantification of the histograms in (A) demonstrating a high level of association between the pathogen and cell lines AVL/CTVM17 and IDE8. C) Fluorescence microscopy 24h after infection of tick cell lines with M. leprae labelled with the green fluorophore PKH67. D) Quantification of the mean values of fluorescence intensity/cell in (C), for which sixty photos were analyzed from three independent experiments. Scale bar represents 20μm; ** = p <0.005 and * = P <0.05 by Dunn’s multiple comparisons test.