| Abstract |
Athymic and euthymic mice with BALB/c background were used to study the patterns of fibrosis during ip infection with a virulent isolate of Paracoccidioides brasiliensis. Specimens from various organs were collected from the animals at 1, 4 and 7 weeks after infection and observed under light microscopy using various histologic staining methods. Lesions from the first week of infection, in both animal groups, presented a predominance of collagen III over I, carboxylated proteoglycans, and a tendency to encapsulation. From 4 weeks onward, the lesions of nu/+ mice tended to involute to macrophage-pseudoxanthomatous aggregates or to encapsulation with an increase of collagen I and sulfated proteoglycans. On the contrary, with the evolution of the infection, the nu/nu mice displayed permanently active lesions, rich in reticular fibers and carboxylated proteoglycans, with varied amounts of collagens III and I, without or with minimal encapsulation. However, independent of the type of mice, or of the type of lesions, the minimal P. brasiliensis-ECM unit was formed by a fibrillar cocoon of reticular fibers that encloses an individual yeast or a "family" composed of a mother cell plus one or various peripheral daughter cells, alone or engulfed by macrophages or giant cells. The overall difference of the lesions of nude and normal mice was not in isolated aspects of their components, but in the general architecture of the lesions. Those of nu/+ mice were either of involutive or of encapsulated type (slightly active), and those of nu/nu mice were of the sustained-expansive type (very active), without or with minimal encapsulation.
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