Trypanosoma lewisi, Trypanosoma rhodesiense:Mitotic activity in normal and folic acid deficient rats

✍ Scribed by Georgiana F. Aboko-Cole; Clarence M. Lee

• Publisher: Springer-Verlag
• Year: 1975
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 369 KB
• Volume: 47
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1432-1955
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00382630

✦ Synopsis

Ten experiments were performed to compare mitotic activity in livers of rats infected with Trypanosoma rhoäesiense and Trypanosoma lewisi.

The host dietary groups were: (1) complete or full complement;

(2) folic acid deficient, and (3) pair-fed or calorically restricted.

Liver mitotic counts of T. lewisi-infected rats fed complete and pair-fed control diets showed a high degree of significance over that of control rats. From days 35 to 55, liver mitotic counts of T. lewisi-infected rats deficient in folic acid showed an average of 16 -4-2 mitotic phases as compared to 9--2 for livers of uninfected animMs.

Liver mitotic counts of T. rhodesiense-infected and non-infected rats fed complete and pair-fed control diets showed that there were essentially no differences in the mitotic counts from that seen in liver from control, uninfected animMs. On day 25 (day 5 of infection), folic acid-deficient infected rats showed a significantly higher number of dividing cells than the controls.

Folate was measured in isolated, washed T. lewisi and T. rhodesiense cells. T. lewisi and T. rhodesiense contained 9.6 ng folate per 10 s cells and 6.2 ng of folate per 10 s cells respectively.

Metabolic products of T. lewisi contained an average of 0.51 ng of folate per 10 s trypanosomes. T. rhodesiense metabolic products contained 0.3 ng of folate per l0 s trypanosomes.