Anatomopathological study in BALB/c mice brains experimentally infected with Toxoplasma gondii

Braz J Infect Dis. 2008 Feb;12(1):52-6

Anatomopathological study in BALB/c mice brains experimentally infected with Toxoplasma gondii

Silva MG, Lino Junior Rde S, Costa TL, Soares JD, Amaral WN, Avelino MM, Castro AM.

Postgraduate program from the Tropical Pathology and Public Health Institute, Federal University of Goias.

Toxoplasmosis is one of the most important diseases of the nervous central system, leading to severe symptoms and, many times, irreversible sequelae. This work demonstrated the main anatomopathological lesions caused by Toxoplasma gondii in brains from experimentally infected BALB/c mice. We analyzed 51 cases of mice that developed toxoplasmosis after experimental infection by intraperitoneal inoculation of blood, amniotic liquid and cerebrospinal fluid from fetuses, newly born children and pregnant women with clinical and laboratory signals of toxoplasmosis. In all experiments where we detected the parasite in mice we also detected pathological lesions in the animal brains with great polymorphism between experiments. Edema was the most found lesion in all cases. Besides, it was possible to demonstrate the inflammatory process in 82.4% of cases and necrosis in 64.7% of cases, in agreement with the literature that describes severe neurological damage in its hosts.

PMID: 18553015 [PubMed - in process]