Schistosoma mansoni eggs: an electron microscopic study of shell pores and microbarbs.

Abstract

An electron microscope study of the shell of living schistosome eggs was made in an effort to elucidate further the mechanism of their nutrition and excretion. Stenger et al. (1) studied the fine structure of murine he-patosplenic Schistosomiasis mansoni and also studied the fine structure of the schistosome egg. These authors described a fenestrated shell and also observed microspicules. Extracellular degradation of these shells in host tissues was observed. They also credit J. H. Smith and F. Von Lichtenberg for observing the fenestra and microspicules independently. The published photographs by Stenger et al. show their fenestrations to be irregular in size, of random distribution, and to be unlined by a plasma or unit membrane. They suggested that these fenestrations might facilitate diffusion of antigenic material from S. mansoni eggs, since Andrade et al. (2) and Lichtenberg (3) demonstrated schistosomal antigens in granuloma tissue.In our study, living eggs grown in vitro by the method of Lee and M...