Skin lesions and cattle hide damage from Haematobia irritans infestations

The horn fly Haematobia irritans L. (Diptera: Muscidae) has recently spread to Argentina and Uruguay and is believed to cause damage to cattle hides. Four groups of ten Holstein steers each were maintained for 58 weeks under different infestation levels with H. irritans to determine if it was the cause of this problem. Hides (chrome tanned) from steers maintained under minimum infestation level had 4.7 +/- 3.8% of the area damaged. Maintaining the steers under low H. irritans level for the last 44 days of the trial using insecticidal ear-tags, resulted in 29.5 +/- 15.8% of hide area being damaged. Steers that were treated with 5% cypermethrin pour-on, when the H. irritans population was close to 50 flies, showed that 31.3 +/- 16.6% of hide area was injured, and 46.6 +/- 12.8% of damaged hide area was found in hides from non-treated steers. Significant differences were found between mean hide damage from steers maintained continuously under low H. irritans infestation levels and all other groups. Hyperaemia was significantly lower in the skin of steers under low H. irritans infestation level than in the skins of non-treated steers and steers maintained under low-level infestations for the final 44 days. Eosinophil and mononuclear cell infiltration was significantly lower when the population of H. irritans was less than six per steer than when the population was more than 100 flies per steer. Low numbers of Stomoxys calcitrans were found in all groups, but most hide damage was presumed due to H. irritans.     

Comparative histopathological alterations in the digestive gland of marine bivalves exposed to Cu and Cd.

This study compares the histopathological alterations in the digestive gland cells of mussels, Mytilus galloprovincialis and clams, Ruditapes phillipinarum following exposure to copper and cadmium. The results show degenerative processes undergone in the digestive gland ranging from inflammatory responses to extreme vacuolation, particularly in Cd-exposed individuals. Unsaturated neutral lipids tend to accumulate in pathologically enlarged lysosomes of the homogeneous-type or heterogeneous-type depending of the species and of metal. Lipofucsins containing granules were mainly found in Cu-exposed mussels and Cd-exposed clams. No granules were detected in Cd-mussels. The comparison of the methods indicate that paraffin sections are also a suitable material for the localization of lipofucsins.     

Is the spontaneous motility of isolated rat uterus controlled by prostaglandin E?

Variations in the spontaneous contractile activity during 6 hours following isolation of uterine horns from proestrus, metestrus and spayed rats, were explored. In estrus and metestrus preparations the contractions declined during 60 min and between 180--200 min a progressive spontaneous recovery (abolished by indomethacin) was observed up to 360 min. Uteri from proestrus and spayed animals exhibited a continuous depression without recovery during the whole experimental period. At 60 min, uterine horns from estrus animals (which showed a marked contractile decrement) released to the suspending medium significantly less prostaglandin E-like material than at 360 min, i.e. when contractions had almost completely recovered. No modification in the amount of prostaglandin F-like material was detected accompanying these spontaneous contractile variations. In the spayed group at 60 min of functioning (i.e. when the contractile impairment was significantly smaller than at a later time) the release of PGE was greater than at 360 min. These findings suggest a possible control of rat uterine contractions by PGE, rather than by PGF.     

Morphometric study on the interhemispheric asymmetries in the Wistar rat and the effects of early experience.

Sixty male Wistar rats were used for this experiment and assigned at random to the control group or to the stimulation method. Control rats show cerebral asymmetry with right bias at the frontal and occipital lobes. In the case of stimulated rats the differences from the occipital zone increase while those from the frontal lobe disappear.     

Uptake and incorporation of arachidonic acid and of dihomogamma-linolenic acid into tissue lipids in uterine strips isolated from ovariectomized and from ovariectomized-diabetic rats. Effects of 17-beta-estradiol

The uptake of 14C-arachidonic acid (14C-AA) and 14C-dihomogamma-linolenic acid (14C-DGLA) into phospholipids (PLs) and neutral lipids (NLs) in uterine tissue obtained from ovariectomized controls (C) and from ovariectomized-diabetic rats (D) was studied. Uterine strips from D rats incorporate significantly less (P less than 0.05) 14C-AA into PLs than C rats. On the other hand the uptake of 14C-AA into NLs is significantly smaller (P less than 0.05) in uterine tissue from C than from D animals. The estrogenization of the C animals did not modify the incorporation of 14C-AA into PLs or NLs. On the contrary, uterine tissue obtained from D rats treated with 17-beta-estradiol incorporated significantly more labelled AA (P less than 0.05) into PLs and significantly less 14C-AA (P less than 0.05) into NLs than untreated D animals. The incorporation of 14C-DGLA into PLs shows similar pattern in uterine tissue obtained from C and D animals. Estrogenization increased significantly (P less than 0.01) in both cases, the incorporation into PLs. Regarding the incorporation of 14C-DGLA, it was clearly shown that DGLA is taken up significantly more (P less than 0.01) by NLs than by PLs, both in C and D rats. The estrogenization of C and D rats induces a significant decrease in the incorporation of 14C-DGLA into NLs in both experimental groups. The distribution of 14C-AA into the different subfractions of PLs is not uniform.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)