Fig. 1

Autophagy occurred in HCT-8 cells infected with C. parvum HCT-8 cells, which were infected with C. parvum sporozoites for 0–24 h. The cellular samples were then analyzed by western blotting with rabbit anti-LC3, anti-Beclin1, anti-p62 and anti-GAPDH antibodies (A). The results were further analyzed by grayscale analysis from four independent experiments (B–D). HCT-8 cells were pretreated with rapamycin (1 μM) and 3-MA (1 mM). Parasite numbers (E) and cell numbers (F) were quantified by using qPCR assays at 24 h post-transfection infected with C. parvum sporozoites. A one-way ANOVA assay with the Tukey-Kramer post hoc test was used for analyzing data. Data are expressed as the mean ± SD from three independent experiments (*P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001, ns = no significant differences)