Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-t5tsf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-16T22:24:52.319Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The migration of juvenile forms of Fasciola hepatica L. through the wall of the intestines in the mouse, with some observations on food and feeding

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 April 2009

Ben Dawes
Ben Dawes
Affiliation:
Department of Zoology, King's College, University of London
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

An attempt has been made to study the movements and feeding habits of juvenile forms of Fasciola hepatica as they pass through the wall of the host's intestines during the first 24 hr. of experimental infections in the mouse. Metacercarial cysts were fed to mice in large numbers (100–500) and the flukes were examined by means of sections during excystment and as free flukes and flukes making their way through various tissues. Excystment is regarded as essentially a feeding operation, the young fluke breaking through the fibrous inner cyst by the physical action of the ventral sucker in weakening the wall and the oral sucker in the actual breakthrough. Free forms were found in sections of infected intestines both in the lumen and lying between the villi, and penetrating forms were located inside the villi, in the submucosa and passing through the muscular layers and the serosa. A great deal of evidence was accumulated which indicates that the young fluke is able to break down epithelia, connective tissue and unstriped muscle fibrils and to feed upon the resultant products, thus proving itself to be a tissue feeder in the broadest sense of the term. The fluke's passage through the intestinal wall is by a devious route, tangential to the mucosa for some distance and then usually diagonally through the muscular layers, following the direction in which the circular muscle cells are oriented but cutting across the longitudinal muscle cells. This is probably due to the angle which the rim of the oral sucker makes with the longitudinal axis of the body, and it is a modification of the browsing habit which is seen when the feeding fluke lies on a plane surface. The tissue feeding proclivities of young flukes were also displayed in instances of penetration into lymph nodes and adipose tissue. These evidences support the opinion previously expressed by the writer that flukes migrating through the hepatic parenchyma, which are merely forms a little older and larger than the forms studied in the present researches, cannot be regarded as blood-feeders in the strict sense of the term but must also be regarded as tissue feeders. Attention is directed to the fact that very few digenetic trematodes have caecal outgrowths and that Fasciola and Fascioloides stand apart from all other genera in having dendritic outgrowths of the intestines. It is remarked also that the development of the ramifications of the intestines in Fasciola hepatica occurs during the first month, and largely during the second week, of juvenile life when the young flukes are eating their way through the hepatic parenchyma. During a few days the ramifications of the caeca develop to a greater extent than occurs during the entire lifespan of all other digenetic trematodes, with the exception of Fascioloides magna.

Type
Research Article
Information
Parasitology , Volume 53 , Issue 1-2 , May 1963 , pp. 109 - 122
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1963

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Dawes, Ben (1961 a). On the early stages of Fasciola hepatica penetrating into the liver of an experimental host, the mouse. A histological picture. J. Helminth. R. T. Leiper Supplement, pp. 41–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dawes, Ben (1961 b). Juvenile stages of Fasciola hepatica in the liver of the mouse. Nature, Lond., 190, 646–47.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dawes, Ben (1961 c). The juvenile stages of Fasciola hepatica during early penetration into the liver of the mouse. Trans. Roy. Soc. Trop. Med. Hyg. 55, 310–11.Google Scholar
Dawes, Ben (1962 a). On the growth and maturation of Fasciola hepatica L. in the mouse. J. Helminth. 36, 11–38.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dawes, Ben (1962 b). Juvenile and mature Fasciola hepatica L. obtained from experimental infections of the mouse: a series illustrating the general features of growth and maturation. Trans. Roy. Soc. Trop. Med. Hyg. 56, 13–14.Google Scholar
Dawes, Ben (1962 c). A histological study of the caecal epithelium of Fasciola hepatica L. Parasitology 52, 483–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dawes, Ben (1962 d) Additional notes on the growth of Fasciola hepatica L. in the mouse, with some remarks about recent researches in Belgium. J. Helminth. 36, 259–68.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lagrange, E. & Gutmann, A. (1961). Sur l'infestation experimentale de la souris par Fasciola hepatica. Riv. Parassit. 22, 93–101.Google Scholar
Krull, W. H. (1958). The migratory route of the metacercaria of Dicrocoelium dendriticum (Rudolphi, 1919) Looss, 1899 in the definitive host: Dicrocoeliidae. Cornell Vet. 48, 17–24.Google Scholar
Mapes, C. R. (1951). Studies on the biology of Dicrocoelium dendriticum (Rudolphi, 1819) Looss, 1899 (Trematoda: Dicrocoeliidae…etc. I. A study of Dicrocoelium dendriticum and Dicrocoelium infection. Cornell Vet. 41, 382–432.Google Scholar
Price, E. W. (1932). The trematode parasites of marine mammals Proc. U.S. Nat. Mus. 81, Art. 13, 1–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stephenson, W. (1947). Physiological and histochemical observations on the adult liver fluke, Fasciola hepatica L. II. Feeding. Parasitology, 38, 123–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wikerhauser, T. (1960). A rapid method for determining the viability of Fasciola hepatica metacercariae. Amer. J. Vet. Res. 21, 895–97.Google ScholarPubMed
Vogel, H. (1934). Der Entwicklungszyklus von Opisthorchis felineus (Riv.) nebst Bemerkungen über die Systematik und Epidemiologie. Zoologica, Stuttgart, 33, 1–103.Google Scholar
Yamaguti, S. (1958). Systema helminthum. Vol. 1, The Digenetic Trematodes of Vertebrates, 1575 pp. New York: Interscience Publishers, Inc.Google Scholar
Yokogawa, S., Cort, W. W. & Yokogawa, M. (1960). Paragonimus and Paragonimiasis. Exp. Parasitol. 10, 81–205.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yokogawa, M., Yoshimura, H., Okura, T., Sano, M., Tsuji, M. & Takano, S. (1959). Studies on the route of the migration of the larvae of Paragonimus westermani in rats by Evans-blue technique I. The excystation times and the distribution of the penetration sites of the excysted larvae. J. Parasitol. 45, Suppl., p. 20.Google Scholar