An experiment was conducted to study the effect of presence or absence of rumen ciliate protozoa on nutrient intake, its utilization, rate of body weight gain and feed conversion ef®ciency of lambs in post-weaning phase of growth. Forty ®ve weaned Malpura lambs, divided into three equal groups (G1, G2 and G3) were either defaunated by periodic dosing of sodium lauryl sulfate at the rate of 8 g/...

Two adult sheep (75 kg live weight) fitted with rumen cannulas were defaunated by the emptying method during the first period of the experiment. They were inoculated with the genus Isotricha alone during the second period, and with a mixed ciliate population (Entodinium, Eudiplodinium, Epidinium) during the third. They were fed a diet of grass hay (840 g) and pelleted maize grains (360 g) in 8 ...

The effect of cattle grazing on the soil nematode and protozoan communities, and on microbial biomass, was measured in Israel’s northern highlands. Three grazing areas were compared: (1) with 1 1 cow ha 1 y ; (2) 0 55 cow ha 1 y ; and (3) control—no grazing for almost 18 years. Soil samples were collected from the upper 10 cm level of each area (n1⁄4 24), in autumn, before the onset of the rain...

Nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD) is essential for removing premature termination codon-containing transcripts from cells. Studying the NMD pathway in model organisms can help to elucidate the NMD mechanism in humans and improve our understanding of how this biologically important process has evolved. Ciliates are among the earliest branching eukaryotes; their NMD mechanism is poorly understoo...

Family Trichodinidae comprises ciliate protozoa distributed worldwide; they are considered some of the main parasitological agents infecting cultivated fish. However, the trichodinidae parasitizing important fish species cultured in Brazil are unknown, and more taxonomic studies on this group of parasites are required. This research morphologically characterizes Trichodina colisae Asmat & Sulta...

The survival of Salmonella enterica was recently shown to increase when the bacteria were sequestered in expelled food vacuoles (vesicles) of Tetrahymena. Because fresh produce is increasingly linked to outbreaks of enteric illness, the present investigation aimed to determine the prevalence of protozoa on spinach and lettuce and to examine their interactions with S. enterica, Escherichia coli ...

Biogenic methane contributes substantially to the atmospheric methane concentration and thus to global warming. This trace gas is predominantly produced by strictly anaerobic methanogenic archaea, which thrive in the most divergent ecological niches, e. g. paddy fields, sediments, landfills, and the digestive tract of various animals. Methanogenic archaea also live as endosymbionts in the cytop...

A novel cellular cytotoxicity assay using two fluorescent dyes was developed as an alternative method to the standard direct count of viable protozoa under light microscopy. The compound calcein AM is a non-fluorescent substance that diffuses passively across intact cell membranes and is converted by intracellular esterases to the green fluorescent calcein, which is retained in viable cells. Th...