The number of viable fungi diminished quickly in spleen, liver and lungs during the infection until complete disappearance after 60 days of observation. The disagreement between our findings and a recently published data [14] could be attributed to several important factors such as host susceptibility characteristics as a consequence of different C. callosus genetic backgrounds, ours being isogenic strains [3]; animal housing conditions; and P. brasiliensis strain virulence differences due to a distinct P. brasiliensis isolate (PB01), and laboratory culture

collection maintenance procedures. Our results are consistent with the pattern of experimental infection of C. callosus with T. cruzi, learn more where all the infected animals survived but had positive parasitological tests, until the end

of the experiments. The lesions induced by this parasite were characterized by severe inflammation in the myocardium and skeletal muscle, which gradually subsided becoming absent or residual on the 64th day of infection [1, 6, 9, 22]. Thus, with two MK5108 distinct infection agents, P. brasiliensis and T. cruzi, C. callosus, although able to acquire experimental infections, became cured or without detectable tissue lesions as the time elapsed. Despite the fact that lungs, liver, and lymph nodes showed no detectable lesions in the chronic phase of infection, C. callosus developed persistent pancreatic infection. This observation may be due to the local peritoneal involvement, as a consequence of the inoculation site. Similarly, macroscopical observations revealed that the minor omentum was the most affected tissue by the infection, which is colocalized with the pancreas. These findings prompted us to address the question whether the fungi growth alters the endocrine homeostasis of C. callosus. As the infection with P. brasiliensis destroys the pancreas, one would expect alterations on glucose serum levels affecting the survival of the animals but, surprisingly, in our experiments C. callosus had a long term surviving curve (more than 250 days after the infection,

Fig. 2). This hypothesis was confirmed by our results as C. callosus infected with P. brasiliensis showed a significant reduction of glucose levels as infection progressed 4��8C (Fig. 3 and 5). Taken together, these data infer that the infection progression develops differently in accordance to the anatomical site, reinforcing that the pancreas could present an adequate environment for the fungi development. As seen in several infectious disease models, P. brasiliensis infection also induces leukocytosis. The leukocytes blood levels were higher during the infection as compared with the non-infected animals (Fig. 4A, day 0). C. callosus presented two distinct leukocytosis peaks flanked by periods of BTSA1 molecular weight normal blood cell counts.