Feasibility of using papaya skin extract for digestion of swamp eel viscera for harvesting infective stage larva of Gnathostoma spp.

In this study, we reported the feasibility of using papaya skin extract (Carica papaya L.) as an alternative to enzyme pepsin in harvesting Gnathostoma spinigerum third-stage larvae. From experimental digestion, we found that the different numbers of recovered larvae between papaya skin extract and pepsin were not statistically significant (p >0.05). When the derived larvae from pepsin and papaya skin extract digestion were cultivated in BME medium for 7 days, the survival rates were not significantly different either (p >0.05). Thus, papaya skin extract might be another choice for recovering Gnathostoma spinigerum third-stage larvae.