Fig. 3

Phagocytosis of membrane protein-coated microbeads is higher with phosphate deprived bacilli proteins. Assays were carried out with J774A.1 macrophage-like cells and green fluorescent microbeads coated with plasma membrane proteins obtained from mycobacteria grown with and without Pi. MOs (5 × 10⁵) were placed on acid-washed glass coverslips. Microbeads were added to cells at a 1:5, 1:20 and 1:100 rate for 4 h at 37 °C in 5% CO₂. The percentage of cells with ingested or bound microbeads was estimated counting at least 400 MOs (a, b). At 1:100 rate the phagocytosis of microbeads coated with proteins of Pi-deprived bacilli was 84.44% and of bacilli grown with Pi it was 45.4% (a, c). p < 0.05; unpaired t Student’s test. Results of 5 experiments are presented