Toxoplasma gondii: a morphometric analysis of the wall and epithelial cells of pigs intestine

Exp Parasitol. 2010 Mar 13. [Epub ahead of print]

Toxoplasma gondii: a morphometric analysis of the wall and epithelial cells of pigs intestine

da Silva PD, Shiraishi CS, da Silva AV, Gonçalves GF, Sant'ana DD, de Almeida Araújo EJ.

Instituto de Pesquisa Estudos e Ambiência Científica (IPEAC), Universidade Paranaense (UNIPAR), Umuarama, Paraná, Brasil.

The aim of this study was to perform a morphometric analysis of the different layers of the jejunal wall and epithelial cells of pigs with toxoplasmosis. Experiments were conducted using ten 88-day-old crossbred (Pietran x Wessex) pigs divided into two groups: control (n = 5) and experimental (n = 5). The experimental group consisted of animals inoculated orally with 5,000 sporulated oocysts of a genotype III strain of Toxoplasma gondii. At 30 and 60 days following inoculation, the animals were anaesthetised for jejunal biopsy. The intestinal segments were processed routinely for histology. Transverse cuts (4mum thick) were stained with haematoxylin and eosin (HE), Periodic Acid Schiff (PAS), Alcian Blue (AB), pH 2.5, and Alcian Blue (AB), pH 1.0. We observed hypertrophy of the jejunal wall, increased enterocyte height, and a decreased number of intraepithelial lymphocytes in the infected animals. There were no changes in the number of goblet cells. Copyright © 2010. Published by Elsevier Inc.

PMID: 20233593 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]