Figure 1

Effectiveness of BDQ against T. gondii. A Plaque assays for BDQ- or DMSO-treated parasites. HFF in each well were infected with 150 freshly harvested tachyzoites and incubated for 8 days undisturbed in the absence or presence of 10 μM BDQ. B Calculation of plaque area by measuring pixel points of randomly selected plaques (n > 30). Data were analyzed from three independent experiments. C Inhibition curve of BDQ against T. gondii in vitro. TgRH-Luc was treated with different concentrations of BDQ ranging from 0 to 20 μM, and relative luminescence units (RLU) were detected after 24 h. EC₅₀ was calculated using the regression equation of log (inhibitor) vs. response-variable slope (four parameters) in GraphPad Prism 9 (San Diego, CA, USA). Means ± standard deviations (SD) are shown for the results of three independent experiments, each condition containing three replicates. D Effect of BDQ on intracellular parasites. Freshly (1 × 10⁵) released TgRH-Luc tachyzoites were allowed to invade the host cells for 2 h and were cultured for 24 h in medium containing BDQ (10 μM) or DMSO after several washes. Parasite growth was determined by the RLU. E The effect of BDQ on extracellular parasites. Fresh extracellular tachyzoites were pretreated with 10 μΜ BDQ or vehicle for 4 h, then inoculated into cells and cultured in drug-free medium for 24 h. F Cytotoxicity of BDQ on Vero cells. CCK-8 reagent was used to determine the cytotoxicity of different concentrations of BDQ on Vero cells. % viability = [(OD_BDQ-OD_blank) / (OD_DMSO-OD_blank)] × 100. Data are expressed as mean ± SD in triplicate. ns = non-significant, ** P < 0.01, *** P < 0.001, ****P < 0.0001.