Heartwater : past, present and future : proceedings of a workshop held at Berg en Dal, Kruger National Park, on 8-16 September 1986

The morphology and development of Cowdria ruminantium have been studied in Amblyomma hebraeum and A. variegatum. Colonies of C. ruminantium have so far been demonstrated microscopically in gut, salivary gland cells, haemocytes and malphighian tubules of infected Amblyomma ticks. Colonies in gut cells were seen in both unfed and feeding ticks but colonies in salivary gland acini were observed only in nymphs that had fed for 4 days. Although the predominant type seen in both tick stages was the reticulated form that appeared to divide by binary fission, electron dense forms were also present. The latter are similar to those forms documented in endothelial cells of the vertebrate host as well as in cell culture. The presence of colonies of C. ruminantium in salivary glands of feeding ticks, along with the demonstration of different morphologic forms of the organism, suggests that a developmental cycle of the organism occurs in its invertebrate host. It is thought that organisms first infect and develop within gut cells. From there subsequent stages continue their development in haemolymph and salivary glands and are then transferred to the vertebrate host during tick feeding. Further studies are needed to completely understand the development of C. ruminantium in ticks and its subsequent transmission by these parasites.The articles have been scanned in colour with a HP Scanjet 5590; 600dpi. Adobe Acrobat XI Pro was used to OCR the text and also for the merging and conversion to the final presentation PDF-format

Heartwater : past, present and future : proceedings of a workshop held at Berg en Dal, Kruger National Park, on 8-16 September 1986

Mallory's phloxine-methylene blue stain was used to differentiate colonies of Cowdria ruminantium in midgut epithelial cells of nymphal Amblyomma hebraeum that had been infected as larvae. Gut tissues were collected from nymphs that had fed on a susceptible sheep and were fixed in formol-saline on the day of repletion. Paraffin sections, 3-4 μm thick, were then stained and this rendered colonies and cell nuclei densely blue against a uniformly pink background of tick tissues. Colonies were easily distinguished from nuclei by their specific morphology. This method of parasite visualization may be adapted to field-collected ticks for rapid detection of C. ruminantium or to assays of susceptibility of tick populations to various strains of the organism.The articles have been scanned in colour with a HP Scanjet 5590; 600dpi. Adobe Acrobat XI Pro was used to OCR the text and also for the merging and conversion to the final presentation PDF-format