Fig. 1. Natural history and pathological anatomy of the murine megacolon. Control and infected groups were evaluated in the acute phase (AP; 11 days) and chronic phases (CP; 3, 7, 12, and 15 months post-infection [m.p.i]) of Trypanosoma cruzi infection. (A) control acute phase (CAP), (B) infected acute phase (IAP), (C) infected chronic phase 3 m.p.i. (ICP3), (D) infected chronic phase 7 m.p.i. (ICP7), (E) control chronic phase 12 m.p.i. (ICP12), (F) control chronic phase 15 m.p.i. (ICP15). For images (A) to (F), arrows: inflammatory infiltrate; asterisk: muscle degeneration; dashed line: thickness of the circular smooth muscle layer. Bar: 50 µm (10×) A, B, C, D, E, and F; 20 µm (20×) insert F. (G) Clinical score of the histopathological aspects of the control and the infected acute and chronic phases groups. (H) For each animal, the thickness of the muscular layer value was calculated from the average of 10 images in H&E (10× objective) (n = 5, for each group). For (H), statistical analysis: two-way ANOVA and Student–Newman–Keuls. Control (○); Infected (●). For (H), the symbols (*) represent differences to the group (control vs infected) and the letters represent the difference in the time, regarding the same group. aDifferent from AP (ie, ICP3, ICP7, ICP12, and ICP15 were different from IAP). P ≤ 0.05. Data presented as mean ± SD. (I) Macroscopic aspects of the megacolon of mice infected (ICP15) compared to control mice (CCP).
© J Neurogastroenterol Motil
