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Observations on the structure of Leishmania donovani — The Kala-azar parasite

1954; Elsevier BV; Volume: 6; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/0014-4827(54)90183-4

1090-2422

Nivedita Dasgupta, Arun K. Guha, M. L. De,

Trypanosoma species research and implications

1. The flagellate form of Leishmania donovani observed under the phase microscope shows that in the living condition the nuclear region is optically lighter then the rest of the cell with the exception of vacuole. 2. In direct electron micrographs of OsO4 fixed specimens, the whole body of the flagellate appears uniformly dark and no internal details are visible. 3. A method of hydrolysis has been described which makes the flagellates suitably thin for electron microscopic study of detailed morphology. 4. This method reveals clearly the nucleus with an outer dark margin, a central karyosome, the parabasal body and longitudinal myoneme fibrils arranged in inter-connected bundles on the periplast. 5. The flagellum is found to resolve first into two bundles with two intermediate fibrils and finally into a maximum number of nine fibrils with an average width of 450 Å.