Date of Award:

5-1-1969

Document Type:

Thesis

Degree Name:

Master of Science (MS)

Department:

Biology

Department name when degree awarded

Zoology

Committee Chair(s)

Datus M. Hammond

Committee

Datus M. Hammond

Abstract

Studies were made with the light microscope of live sporozoites of E. ninakohlyakimovae and E. ellipsoidalis as well as sporozoites fixed with Schaudinn's, Stieve's, and Zenker's fluids; methanol; and ethanol saturated with picric acid. These sporozoites were stained with Giemsa, bromphenol blue, modified PAS-AO, Feulgen, Harris' hematoxylin and eosin Y, and iron hematoxylin. The sporozoites of these two species as well as these of E. auburnensis and E. bovis were also fixed with glutaraldehyde and osmium tetroxide or negatively stained for study with the electron microscope. The living sporozoites exhibited gliding, pivoting, flexing, and probing movements. Each sporozoite of each species was covered by a pellicle consisting of an outer limiting unit membrane that was continuous around the sporozoite and an inner membrane that terminated at the polar ring. Twenty-four subpellicular microtubules were longitudinally arranged just beneath the inner membrane. At the anterior end of the sporozoites was a protruded or retracted conoid composed of spirally arranged fibrillar structures, two tubular rings anterior to the conoid, and the polar ring, a nodular thickening at the anterior termination of the microtubules and inner membrane. Other organelles observed were a nucleus with or without a net-like nucleolus, club-shaped organelles, refractile bodies, micronemes, endoplasmic reticulum, Golgi apparatus, mitochondria with tubular cristae, micropores, lipoid-like bodies, oval PAS-positive osmiophobic granules that were apparently glycogen or amylopectin, vacuoles containing nondescript material, and ribosomes. The fine structure of these sporozoites is compared to that of related Sporozoa.

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