THBS1 and infection: To elucidate the significance of TSP-1 in hippo signaling during the early phase of cellular infection of heart endothelial cells, we challenged MHEC from WT and TSP-1KO mice with invasive T. cruzi trypomastigotes, for various lengths of time (0, 1, 2, 3 and 6 h), and evaluated whether the hippo signaling pathway was turned on or off in the presence or absence of TSP-1.