Abstract
The influence of age and the presence of secondary sporocysts in the miraxonal attraction exercised by Biomphalaria glabrata on miracidia of Schistosoma mansoni of the BH strain were studied. A glass apparatus containing two compartments joined by a tube and previously tested in other experiments, was used. Specimens of B. glabrata or its snail conditioned water (SCW) selected before the first oviposition (sexually immature), after the first oviposition (adult), with or without secondary sporocysts, were used to attract the miracidia. It was noted that snails or their SCW containing secondary sporocysts lost the ability to attract miracidia. The sexual maturity of the snail did not influence miraxonal attraction.
Highlights
Miraxonal attraction caused by vectors snails of Schistosoma mansoni was demonstrated by Kloetzel[8, 9] (1958, 1960), Etges et al.[6] (1985)
The statistical analysis (Table 2) evidenced that: a) infection had a definite effect, in those snails with secondary sporocysts showed no attraction to miracidia; b) sexual maturity was immaterial to attraction
The repellence to miracidia of S. mansoni had already been described by Magalhães et al.[12] (1991) in a sample of Biomphalaria straminea
Summary
Miraxonal attraction caused by vectors snails of Schistosoma mansoni was demonstrated by Kloetzel[8, 9] (1958, 1960), Etges et al.[6] (1985). The miracidia attraction to intermediate hosts results from substances emanated by the snail in water. The water containing these substances is named SCW (snail conditioned water) (Chernin4, 1970). The hemolymph and the SCW of the vector mollusks were analysed by Brasio et al.[2, 3] (1985) where they appointed some cations and aminoacids as probable substances responsible for miraxonal attraction. Niemann et al.[14] (1990) observed that the susceptibility to the infection of B. glabrata caused by S. mansoni was inversely related to the size of the snail and not necessarily to its age
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