Boutonneuse fever caused by Rickettsia conorii is transmitted mainly by the brown dog tick, Rhipicephalus sanguineus. We collected 540 ticks in Marseille, France, and tried to isolate as many strains of rickettsia as possible. Ticks were evaluated for the presence of rickettsia by the hemolymph test and by a new culture system, the centrifugation-shell vial technique. We avoided contamination i...

Serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine, 5-HT) modulates the behavior and physiology of both vertebrate and invertebrate animals. Effects of injections of 5-HT and the morphology of the serotonergic system of Aplysia indicate that 5-HT may have a humoral, in addition to a neurotransmitter, role. To study possible humoral roles of 5-HT, we measured 5-HT in the hemolymph. The concentration of 5-HT in the ...

The role of hemolymph ecdysteroids in the reproduction of non-dipteran insects is unclear. We examine the role(s) of hemolymph ecdysteroids during egg production in the lubber grasshopper, Romalea microptera. In all individuals, hemolymph ecdysteroids rose to a sharp peak with similar maxima and then fell to undetectable levels. The time from the adult molt to the maximum ecdysteroid titer (E(m...

Urease activity was detected in the hemolymph of the silkworm, Bombyx mori from the beginning of spinning to the pharate adult stage if the larvae were reared on mulberry leaves throughout the 5th-instar (the last larval instar). In contrast, no urease activity was detected in the hemolymph of insects fed artificial diets, resulting in accumulation of urea during the spinning stage. To identify...

Extracellular freezing and dehydration concentrate hemolymph solutes, which can lead to cellular injury due to excessive water loss. Freeze tolerant larvae of the goldenrod gall fly, Eurosta solidaginis, may experience extreme cold and desiccation in winter. To determine whether larvae employ protective mechanisms against excessive cellular water loss we examined the effect of extracellular fre...

Naturally occurring agglutinin was analyzed in the hemolymph of crab Varuna litterata by hemagglutination assay (HA). Hemolymph of V. litterata had the capacity to agglutinate a variety of mammalian erythrocytes, rat > rabbit = guinea pig = horse = buffalo = human A = human B > human O > dog > donkey = goat. Among the various tissues tested for HA, maximum HA titer was observed in the hemolymph...

Borrelia burgdorferi B31 cultured at 28 degrees C was used to assay the effects of tick hemolymph on outer surface protein C (OspC) surface expression. Using immunofluorescence, OspC surface expression was shown to increase in cultures treated with hemolymph from both Ixodes scapularis and Dermacentor variabilis, while control samples (non-hemolymph treated) showed no increase in the levels of ...

The aim of this study was to determine interspecies and gender differences in the lipid metabolism and hemolymph oxidation stability in intermoult period of the European spider crab (M. squinado), the warty crab (E. verrucosa) and the European spiny lobster (P. elephas). In hemolymph samples activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD), glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px) and paraoxonase 1 (PON 1), as ...

No remedies for prion disease have been established, and the conversion of normal to abnormal prion protein, a key event in prion disease, is still unclear. Here we found that substances in beetle grub hemolymph, after they were browned by aging for a month or heating for hours, reduced abnormal prion protein (PrP) levels in RML prion-infected cells. Active anti-prion components in the hemolymp...

In this study, we demonstrate that two of the osmolytes utilized in the osmoconforming strategy of larval Culex tarsalis are regulated by two fundamentally different signals. When the external osmolality was increased using salinity (sea salts), hemolymph NaCl, proline and trehalose concentrations increased significantly. When sorbitol was used to increase the external osmolality without an ele...