The effectiveness of three immunostimulants viz., vitamin C, levamisole and chitin on the prophenoloxidase (proPO) activity of haemolymph, response to challenge studies and growth performance of juveniles of the tiger shrimp Penaeus monodon (Fabricius) was assessed by oral administration of these immunostimulants to the shrimps. The levels of incorporation of these immunostimulants in shrimp fe...

Because of its capacity to rapidly convert superoxide to hydrogen peroxide, superoxide dismutase (SOD) is crucial in both intracellular signalling and regulation of oxidative stress. In this paper we report the cloning of a Cu/Zn SOD (designated as pfSOD) from the pearl oyster (Pinctada fucata) using rapid amplification of cDNA ends (RACE) PCR. The full-length cDNA of this Cu/Zn SOD contains an...

Chelonus inanitus (Braconidae) is a solitary egg-larval parasitoid of Spodoptera littoralis (Noctuidae). Along with the egg it also injects polydnaviruses (CiV) and venom, which are prerequisites for successful parasitoid development. CiV protects the parasitoid from encapsulation by the host's immune system and induces a developmental arrest in the prepupal stage. The polydnavirus genome consi...

In situ hybridizations show that 5 min after parasitization, polydnavirus DNA is in close vicinity of the parasitoid egg, but 5 h later also in the yolk and partially in the host embryo. Fifteen hours after parasitization, the viral DNA is seen all over the host embryo and hardly in the yolk. The tissue distribution of the viral DNA was analysed and quantified by dot blots in the fifth instar p...

Spodoptera exigua multinucleopolyhedrovirus (SeMNPV) and Spodoptera litura nucleopolyhedrovirus (SpltNPV) are genetically similar, but the larvae of S. exigua are not susceptible to SpltNPV. The aim of this study was to identify whether any process was inhibiting SpltNPV infection at some point. S. exigua larvae infected with a high concentration of wild-type SpltNPV by oral inoculation produce...

In the present work the haemocytes of mussels Mytilus galloprovincialis (Mollusca, Bivalvia) have been studied by light and electron microscopy in order to describe their main morphological features and to relate these to their roles in immune defence. The haemocytes belong to two definitive differentiated types, hyalinocytes and granulocytes. The former shows the presence of several fine pseud...

In this paper a promising new spontaneously aggregating system of amoebocytes from the blood of limpets is described. The system has the advantage of being readily available without cell culture and of being operational at room temperature. The blood of the limpet Patella contains 2 types of haemocytes, amoebocytes and macrophages, the latter accounting for less than 1 % of the cell population....

An oral administration of fungal polysaccharide schizophyllan has augmented protective immune responses to Sendai virus infection in mice and the rodshaped DNA virus of Penaeus japonicus (RV-PJ) infection in Kuruma shrimps. When schizophyllan was administered orally at a dose of 50 or 100 mg/kg body weight per day, the survival rates after virus challenge were significantly higher than those of...

Horseshoe crabs have been identified as one of the marine species that contribute greatly to scientific advances especially in haematological studies. Besides the haemocytes of these creatures, they are also well known for their protein contents in the perivitelline fluid (PVF). Due to this, over the years, there has been increasing interests in the scientific community to explore the function ...