Fig. 1

The triatomine saliva inhibits differentiation of DCs. Cells derived from bone marrow of C57BL/6 mice were cultured with GM-CSF (25 ng/ml) for 7 days in the presence or absence of triatomine saliva (P. lignarius, M. pallidipennis, T. lecticularia and R. prolixus - dilution 1:30, 1:100, 1:300 and 1:1000 v/v in the middle). On day 7, the cultured cells were collected and selected, first according to the size (FSC) and granularity (SSC) (a) and in sequence were evaluated for the expression of surface molecules CD11b and CD11c (b–j). b Cells cultured only with culture medium. Bars represent the mean ± standard error percentage of DCs expressing molecular markers from triplicate experiments. *P < 0.05 compared with cells cultured without saliva (labelled “Medium” in the graph)