Differential Effects on Survival, Humoral Immune Responses and Brain Lesions in Inbred BALB/C, CBA/CA, and C57BL/6 Mice Experimentally Infected with Neospora caninum Tachyzoites

Table 2

Experimental groups, numbers of symptomatic mice, and numbers of parasites in brain and brain lesion scores at the time of death or euthanasia (intercurrent death) or at the end of the experiment at day 34 PI. The detection limit of the PCR is 10 parasites/reaction. Lesions were graded using the following system: (0) no lesions, (1) light positive or small foci, (2) moderately positive, (3) severely positive with large inflammatory process, *tachyzoites, and **cyst.

	Experimental groups (𝑛=5)	Number of symptomatic mice	Time of death (day PI)	Number of parasites in 20 ng brain DNA (real-time PCR)	Brain lesion score (histopathology)
	1 × 10^6	0	34, 34, 34, 34, 34	0, 0, 0, 361, 300	0, 0, 0, 1, 0
BALB/c	5 × 10^6	5	34, 34, 34, 34, 23	464, 651, 488, 902, 1183	0, 2, 1, 1, 2
	25 × 10^6	5	8, 12, 8, 12, 7	587, 763, 260, ND, 154	0, 0, 0, 0, 0
	1 × 10^6	0	34, 34, 34, 34, 34	0, 0, 0, 0, 156	3*, 0, 0, 2, 0
CBA/Ca	5 × 10^6	0	34, 34, 34, 34, 34	0, 0, 0, 0, 0	0, 0, 0, 0, 0
	25 × 10^6	5	9, 9, 8, 9, 9	466, 433, 349, 606, 593	0, 0, 1, 1, 2
	1 × 10^6	2	34, 34, 29, 29, 34	0, 177, 525, 0, 763	0, 0, 1, 1, 2
C57BL/6	5 × 10^6	5	13, 7, 34, 8, 34	312, 0, 638, 0, 879	3**, 0, 2, 0, 3
	25 × 10^6	5	8, 8, 34, 8, 8	344, 325, 788, 232, 0	0, 0, 2, 0, 0