PURPOSE This study was undertaken to evaluate the endothelial pump function by monitoring both corneal swelling response under hypoxia and dehydration response following hypoxia in vivo. METHODS Humidified nitrogen gas was used to obtain corneal swelling, and humidified gas mixed with oxygen and nitrogen was used for corneal dehydration. First, in 6 young volunteers, we investigated the most ...

AIMS To report the appearances of cornea guttata and Fuchs' endothelial dystrophy from white light confocal microscopy. METHODS Seven eyes of four consecutive patients with cornea guttata were prospectively examined. Of the seven eyes, three also had corneal oedema (Fuchs' dystrophy). In vivo white light tandem scanning confocal microscopy was performed in all eyes. Results were compared with...

In order to acquire prevalence and genetic data on Cryptosporidium infections in captive lizards and snakes kept as pets, a survey was conducted on 150 individual reptiles from southern Italy. Fecal samples were preserved in 5% formalin and analyzed using a commercial immunofluorescence assay (IFA) for the detection of Cryptosporidium oocysts and Giardia cysts. IFA revealed the presence of Cryp...

OBJECTIVE Partial sequence cloning of interferon receptor (IFNAR-1) of Columba livia. MATERIAL AND METHODS In order to obtain a certain length (630 bp) of gene, a pair of primers was designed according to the conserved nucleotide sequence of Gallus (EU477527.1) and Taeniopygia guttata (XM_002189232.1) IFNAR-1 gene fragment that was published by GenBank. Special primers were designed by the Ra...