Biochemical and histological changes in liver of Nectomys squamipes naturally infected by Schistosoma mansoni

• Autor(a) principal: Costa Neto,Sócrates Fraga da
• Data de Publicação: 2013
• Outros Autores: Alves,Vinicius Menezes Tunholi, Alves,Victor Menezes Tunholi, Garcia,Juberlan Silva, Santos,Marcos Antônio José dos, Nogueira,Vivian de Assunção, Brito,Marilene de Farias, Gentile,Rosana, Pinheiro,Jairo
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Revista Brasileira de Parasitologia Veterinária (Online)
• Texto Completo: http://old.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1984-29612013000400519
• topic: Biochemical alterations; rodents; wild reservoirs; alternative model

The South American water rat Nectomys squamipes is a wild mammal reservoir of Schistosoma mansoni in Brazil. In the present study, wild rodents were collected in the field and categorized into two groups: infected and uninfected by S. mansoni. Blood was collected to analyze changes in the serum glucose level (mg/dL) and liver fragments were used to determine the hepatic glycogen content (mg of glucose/g tissue). The histological examination showed inflammatory granulomatous lesions in different phases of development in the liver of rodents naturally infected with S. mansoni, in some cases with total or partial occlusion of the vascular lumen. Early lesions were characterized by the presence of inflammatory infiltrate around morphologically intact recently deposited eggs. Despite the significance of these histological lesions, the biochemical changes differed in extent. N. squamipes naturally infected by S. mansoni showed no variation in hepatic glycogen reserves. These findings were accompanied by a significant increase in plasma glucose contents, probably as a consequence of amino acids deamination, which are degraded, resulting in the formation of intermediates used as precursors for the glucose formation, without compromising the reserves of liver glycogen. In the wild, naturally infected N. squamipes can maintain S. mansoni infections without undergoing alterations in its carbohydrate metabolism, which minimizes the deleterious effects of S. mansoni.