Table 2

Evaluation of treatment of infected macrophages. Murine macrophages (5 × 10⁵ cells) were cultured in complete RPMI 1640 medium for 24 h at 37 °C in 5% CO₂. After, cells were washed twice with PBS and L. infantum stationary promastigotes were added to the cultures at a ratio of 10 parasites per macrophage, for 48 h at 37 °C in 5% CO₂. Free parasites were removed by washing with RPMI 1640 medium, and infected macrophages were treated with b-AD (0, 3.09, 6.19 and 12.39 μM) or AmpB (0, 0.27, 0.54 and 1.08 μM) for 48 h at 24 °C in 5% CO₂. The percentage of infected cells, the infectiveness reduction, and the number of recovered amastigotes per cell were determined by counting 200 macrophages in triplicate. Results are shown as mean ± standard deviation of the groups.