Infection with T. rangeli reduces the NOS activity and the levels of NOS protein in the salivary glands of R. prolixus.
A. Rhodnius were dissected 7 days after control injection of water or T. rangeli and assayed for NADPH-diaphorase activity. Results from three experiments were evaluated statistically using the Student t test (* p<0.05). B. Salivary gland extracts from control or T. rangeli-injected insects were fractionated by SDS-PAGE and transferred to a nitrocellulose membrane. The membranes were incubated with primary antibody anti-NOS and then with an anti-rabbit antibody conjugated to alkaline phosphatase. This experiment was performed three times. Tr, Trypanosoma rangeli cells evalutated for NOS blotting. N, salivary glands from non-injected insects. C, control salivary glands from insects injected with water. I, Salivary glands from T. rangeli-injected insects. C. NADPH-diaphorase activity was measured in salivary gland extracts of salivary glands three days after injection with 100 ng of glycolipids from either T. rangeli (Tr GIPL), P. serpens (Ps GIPL) or T. cruzi eGPI-mucin (Tc Mucin). The experiment was performed three times and analyzed by ANOVA (* p<0.05).