Fig. 1

A Experimental Design: Seven experimental groups were designed (10 animals/group): non-infected and non-treated control (injected with PBS); non-infected and treated control (30 µg of SGE); chronic infection and non-treated; chronic infection and treated (10 or 30 µg of SGE); Acute infection and treated (30 µg of SGE); acute infection and non-treated. The untreated control group received 100 µL of PBS, while the experimental groups received 10 or 30 µg of SGE daily via intraperitoneal injections. On the third day of treatment, infected mice were orally administered 20 cysts of T. gondii (ME 49 strain) through gavage. The experiment lasted 23 days for the chronic phase (23 days of treatment including 20 days of infection) and 12 days for the acute phase of infection (12 days of treatment including 9 days of infection). Throughout the experiment (23 days), daily recordings of weight and morbidity scores were registered. The euthanasia was conducted on the final day of treatment and the small intestine was measured and collected for morphometrics. Blood samples and small intestine fragments were obtained for cytokine measurement using CBA and ELISA. B The scores were determined according to BARTLEY et al. [15] with modifications