The diagnosis of alveolar echinococcosis, caused by the larval stage of Echinococcus multilocularis, is often difficult and almost always possible only in the later stages of the disease. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the findings of Doppler ultrasonography images for the diagnosis of intraabdominal non-visceral alveolar echinococcosis in Meriones unguiculatus. Six infected animals were s...

The purpose of this study was to determine the 50% infective dose for Giardia lamblia (CDC:0284:1) cysts in Mongolian gerbils (Meriones unguiculatus). The log10 50% infective dose results calculated by probit analysis and the Spearman-Karber method were 2.45 and 2.50, respectively.

The rodent vestibular system is immature at birth. During the first postnatal week, vestibular type I and type II hair cells start to acquire their characteristic morphology and afferent innervation. We have studied postnatal changes in the membrane properties of type I hair cells acutely isolated from the semicircular canals (SCC) of gerbils and rats using whole cell patch clamp and report for...

The gerbil model was used to assess the therapeutic effects of the calcium antagonist nimodipine on cerebral ischemia. Transient cerebral ischemia was produced in each gerbil by bilateral common carotid occlusion of 10-, 15- or 20-min duration. Nimodipine (0.01 or 0.1 mg/kg) was administered intraperitoneally just before the carotid occlusion or 10-30 min after the removal of the arterial clips...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Excessive activation of the N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor by glutamate produces an influx of Ca2+, which in turn is thought to lead to ischemic cell death. In this study we evaluated the combined treatment of the N-methyl-D-aspartate antagonist dizocilpine (MK-801) and the dihydropyridine Ca2+ channel blocker nicardipine for the reduction of hippocampal CA1 neuronal loss....

Species tropism constitutes a serious problem for developing relevant animal models of infection. Human pathogens can express virulence factors that show specific selectivity to human proteins, while their affinity for orthologs from other species can vary significantly. Suitable animal species must be used to analyse whether virulence factors are potential targets for drug development. We deve...

Effect of indomethacin on post-ischemic changes of CA1 neurons was studied in the hippocampus of the Mongolian gerbil. The gerbil was employed because due to poor development of posterior communicating artery ischemia could be easily induced in the forebrain simply by occluding bilateral common carotid arteries. Indomethacin (5 mg/kg, i.p.) was administered 30 min before the occlusion. The occl...

Emerging microarray technologies allow genotyping of long genome sequences resulting in huge amount of data. A key challenge is to provide an accurate phasing of very long single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) sequences. In this paper we explore phasing of genotypes with 2 SNPs adjusted to the non-random mating model and then apply it to the haplotype inference of complete genotypes using maximu...

Brain phospholipase A2 (PLA2) activity has not been well characterized. Given the importance of this enzymatic activity for a variety of cellular functions in the brain, we characterized the subcellular distribution of PLA2 activity in gerbil brain and evaluated how PLA2 activity was altered by ischemia and reperfusion. Cytosolic, mitochondrial, and microsomal fractions were prepared by differe...

Cerebral ischemia was produced in the Mongolian gerbil by bilateral occlusion of the carotid arteries. Although the cerebral ischemia so produced was not total, a mortality rate of 100% was obtained if the occlusion was maintained for 60 min in gerbils weighing 45--55 gm. Few deaths were observed after 50 min of bilateral carotid arterial occlusion. Test drugs were administered, after the remov...