S Yoshihara — Page 10 | PubMed Health

PubMedDate not supplied

Resistance of chicks against reinfection with Leucocytozoon caulleryi.

Chickens were inoculated with five to 40 sporozoites of Leucocytozoon caulleryi at 1 to 9 days of age. Mortality, parasitemia, appearance of serum-soluble antigen, and antibodies were examined. Chickens that survived primary infection were reinoculated with 3 x 10(3) to 1 x 10(4) sporozoites and examined for resistance against reinfection by the same criteria used in primary infection. After primary infection, up to 80% of chickens died of leucocytozoonosis. Surviving chickens showed parasitemia from 13 days to 23 or 24 days after inoculation. Serum-soluble antigen and antibodies were detected in most chickens, except for some chickens that were infected at 1 to 3 days of age. After secondary infection, only a few chickens that received primary infection at 1 to 7 days of age showed a small number of parasites in their peripheral blood. Most of the other chickens were resistant to reinfection. Resistance to reinfection was recognized in some chickens that had not showed antibody production before secondary infection.

Age Factors↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Semiquantitative evaluation of hepatic fibrosis by measuring tissue hydroxyproline.

BACKGROUND/AIMS: It is important to evaluate the degree of hepatic fibrosis when diagnosing and treating hepatic cirrhosis. We focused on hydroxyproline, which is detected specifically in collagen, which plays a major role in hepatic fibrosis. The correlations between liver tissue hydroxyproline residue levels and the degree of hepatic fibrosis were examined in dogs with dimethylnitrosamine-induced fibrotic livers. METHODOLOGY: Dimethylnitrosamine was administered to dogs to establish experimental hepatic fibrosis. Paraffinized sections of liver specimens, stained with hematoxylin-eosin and azan, were examined and the degree of hepatic fibrosis was graded. About three-milligram samples of liver tissue were loaded onto a fully automated liquid chromatograph and the levels of hydroxyproline residues were measured. RESULTS: The liver tissue hydroxyproline appeared to reflect the degree of hepatic fibrosis. The liver tissue hydroxyproline levels and pathological hepatic fibrosis grades correlated significantly (p<0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Tissue hydroxyproline appears to be a more useful fibrosis marker, because hydroxyproline is influenced less by other factors. Furthermore, our results demonstrate that a very small amount of liver tissue (wet weight 3 mg) was enough to enable the levels of hydroxyproline residues to be measured by an automated amino acid analyzer (JLC-3000) and hepatic fibrosis is expressed as the numerical value by this analysis.

Animals↗