Endothelial cell injury induced by A fumigatus. (A) Time course of injury. Endothelial cells were incubated with conidia of A fumigatus H237 for the indicated times, and the extent of endothelial cell injury was determined by the specific release of 51Cr as described in “Materials and methods.” (B) Extent of injury caused by different clinical isolates. Endothelial cells were infected with conidia of the indicated clinical isolates of A fumigatus for 8 hours, after which endothelial cell injury was measured. (C) Comparison of endothelial cell injury caused by live and thimerosal-killed conidia and hyphae of A fumigatus H237 after 8 hours. Results are means ± standard deviation of at least 3 independent experiments. Error bars indicate standard deviation. *P < .001 versus uninfected control wells; §P < .05 versus live organisms; †P < .001 versus conidia.
