The effects of galactooligosaccharide (GOS) and varying levels Lactobacillus plantarum (LP) on some physiological parameters as well air exposure stress resistance in clawed crayfish (Pontastacus leptodactylus) were investigated. During a 97-day trial, 216 fed with four experimental diets (in triplicates) including the control diet (without GOS LP), GLP7 (GOS 2%+LP 107 CFU.g-1 diet), GLP8 108 G...

BACKGROUND Insects have multiple hemocyte morphotypes with different functions as do vertebrates, however, their hematopoietic lineages are largely unexplored with the exception of Drosophila melanogaster. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS To study the hematopoietic lineage of the silkworm, Bombyx mori, we investigated in vivo and in vitro differentiation of hemocyte precursors in the hematopoie...

Pacific oysters, Crassostrea gigas, are commonly reared in estuaries where they are exposed to anthropogenic pollution. Much research has been made on the toxicity of cadmium to aquatic organisms because the compound recurrently contaminates their environment. Our study examined the influence of cadmium on aneuploidy level (lowered chromosome number in a percentage of somatic cells) and hemocyt...

The aim of this study was to test the effect of food quantity on energy storage and defense capacities of oysters during a reproductive cycle. One-year-old Crassostrea gigas oysters were fed two different dietary rations (4% and 12% of oyster dry weight in algal dry weight per day) in controlled experimental conditions over an annual cycle. Oyster dry weights, carbohydrate and lipid contents, e...

In their encounters with foreign intruders, the cells of the insect innate immune system, like those of the mammalian immune system, exhibit both humoral and cell-mediated responses. Some intruders can be dispatched by the humoral immune system alone, but many must be phagocytosed by individual hemocytes or encapsulated by interacting hemocytes. Surface proteins of hemocytes control the abrupt ...

Addition of nitrite-N at 1.5 mg l(-1) in tryptic soy broth (TSB) significantly (p < 0.05) decreased the growth rate of the bacterial pathogen Lactococcus garvieae and significantly (p < 0.05) reduced mortality compared to zero nitrite controls when injected into giant freshwater prawns Macrobrachium rosenbergii at 5 x 10(5) colony-forming units (CFU) per prawn. In other experiments, whereby pra...

In this study, the 96-h LC50 at 22 and 26 °C values was 28.591 and 11.761 mg/L, respectively, for NiCl2 exposure in the abalone. The alteration of physiological and immune-toxicological parameters such as the total hemocyte count (THC), lysozyme, phenoloxidase (PO), and phagocytosis activity was measured in the abalone exposed to nickel (200 and 400 μg/L) under thermal stress for 96 h. In this ...

Diuron is a substituted urea herbicide used for agricultural and nonagricultural weed control. Its widespread use and relatively slow breakdown led us to analyze its influence on aneuploidy level (lowered chromosome number in a percentage of somatic cells) and hemocyte parameters in Pacific oysters, Crassostrea gigas. Adult oysters were subjected to two diuron concentrations (300 ng L(-1) and 3...