Freqüência de anticorpos contra Babesia bigemina, B. bovis e Anaplasma marginale em rebanhos leiteiros da regiäo de Londrina, Paraná / Frequency of antibodies against Babesia bigemina, B. bovis and Anaplasma marginale in dairy farms of Parana State, Brazil

Sera collected from 417 dairy cows from Londrina, PR, Brazil, were analysed by the indirect fluorescent antibody test (IFAT) for the presence of anitbody against Babesia bigemina, Babesia bovis e Anaplasma marginale. All samples were tested diluted 1:80 using rabbit anti-bovine IgG FITC conjugate diluted 1:100. Among the samples, 289 (67.30 per cent), 251 (60.19 per cent) and 281 (67.38 per cent) showed reactivity to B. bigemina, B. bovis and A. marginale, respectively. Although the number of reactive animals as relatively high, considerable percentages of negative animals (30.70 per cent, B. bigemina, 39.18 per cent, B. bovis and 32.62 per cent, A. marginale) were susceptible, characterizing the situation as enzootically instable

Evidence for the participation of proteinases released by Candida albicans in the early killing of peritoneal macrophages in vitro

We have investigated the possibility that proteinases released by Candida albicans participate in the early killing of three types of mice peritoneal macrophage (resident, thioglycollate-elicited, or Con-A-activated)in vitro. Phagocytic assays were performed by incubation of macrophages and C. albicans together at a 1:10 ratio for 30 min at 37 grade C in RPMI medium buffered to pH 7.0 with 12 mM Hepes without serum. With no albumin added to the medium, the medium, the macrophages were 85% to 100% damaged and unviable, to a greater extent than expected from the proportion of phagocytic cells containing germ tubes. When 10 mg/ml of albumin was added to the medium, however, 90% of the macrophages remained viable for the 2 hours of the phagocytic assay, suggesting that albumin may have acted as a substrate for or inhibitor of proteinases released by C. albicans, thereby protecting the macrophage from the proteolytic action of the proteinases. The phagocytosis of IgG-coacted erythrocytes was reduced to 43% when IgG was preincubated with the supernatant from C. albicans cultures, but the addition of 10 mg/ml albuumin or of 5 ug/ml pepstatin (an inhibitor of C. albicans acid proteinases) to the same supernatans prevented the effect on phagocytosis of IgG-coated erythrocytes. These results suggest that proteinases released from C. albicans are involved in the early killing of macrophages

Epilepsia relacionada a alimentacao e associada a astrocitoma cerebral. / Epilepsy related to eating and associated with cerebral astrocytoma

Estudou-se o caso de um paciente com crises epilepticas relacionadas a ingestao de alimentos, cujos exames complementares mostraram a presenca de massa tumoral frontoparietal direita, identificada histologicamente como astrocitoma protoplasmatico microcistico, que se infiltrava ate a cissura silviana