Patterns of infection with the nematodes Syphacia obvelata and Aspiculuris tetraptera in conventionally maintained laboratory mice. Memórias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz

Data on the frequency, distribution and mean intensity of the helminth fauna recovered from outbred and inbred Laboratory animals are suitable and necessary for the proper development of several biological assays. The utilization of these standard models is recommended aiming at the attainment of reliable and reproductible results. In despite of this approach, laboratory animals are seldom investigated for autochthonous ecto and endoparasites prior to their utilization in experiments. In conventional, semi-open facilities, rodent colonies are frequently infected with helminths. These parasites, if undetected, can interfere in the development of protocols and alter the interpretation of final results (Pinto e

Patterns of Infection with the Nematodes Syphacia obvelata and Aspiculuris tetraptera in Conventionally Maintained Laboratory Mice

Data on the frequency, distribution and mean intensity of the helminth fauna recovered from outbred and inbred mice conventionally maintained in Brazilian animal houses, are reported. The oxyurid nematodes Syphacia obvelata   and Aspiculuris tetraptera   presented overall frequencies of 91.5% and 8.5%, respectively. The frequency of S. obvelata in animals of three groups out of the four investigated ranged from 9% to 74% and A. tetraptera from 17% to 83%, since animals of one of the groups were negative for helminths. Infections due to a single species were observed in 62% of the animals, compared to 16% related to associations. The frequency of single infections in each group varied from 58.6% to 100% whereas associations varied from 24.1% to 41.4%. The analysis of specific mean intensities showed that S. obvelata was represented by 13.35 to 66.58 specimens/host and A. tetraptera by 5.85 to 16.75 specimens/host