We have developed two loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) assays for the detection of Theileria parva, the causative agent of East Coast fever (ECF), an economically important cattle disease in eastern, central and southern Africa. These assays target the polymorphic immunodominant molecule (PIM) and p150 LAMP genes. The primer set for each gene target consists of six primers, and eac...

The sea cucumber Holothuria leucospilota has high me-dicinal value and rich nutritional edible value, and thus is a commercially important aquatic product in China. Microsatellite loci were developed and screened using a fast isolation protocol and amplified fragment length polymorphism of sequences containing repeats. In this study, 16 novel polymorphic microsatellite markers in H. leucospilot...

Concerted evolution of multicopy gene families in vertebrates is recognized as an important force in the generation of biological novelty but has not been documented for the multicopy genes of protozoa. A multicopy locus, Tpr, which consists of tandemly arrayed open reading frames (ORFs) containing several repeated elements has been described for Theileria parva. Herein we show that probes deri...

To assess the spatial variability in external morphology of non-native populations of topmouth gudgeon Pseudorasbora parva within an ontogenetic context, triple regression analysis (distance-based measurements) was applied to data from eight European populations (two Slovak, four Romanian, one English and one French). The data from Slovakia were also subjected to geometrical analysis (co-ordina...

Sea cucumbers play an important role in nutrient cycling of marine ecosystems by consuming sediments and moving sand, thus occupying a similar niche to earthworms in terrestrial ecosystems. However, our understanding of microbial diversity and functions associated with sea cucumbers is meager. Here, we isolated 141 bacterial strains under aerobic conditions using various media from the intestin...

Search volume of cruising planktivorous fish was calculated based on its detailed behavior Th examine the factors influencing search volume, a series of experiments were conducted by varying ambient conditions, such as structural complexity light intensity and turbidity Pseudorasbora parva were used in experiment as predator and Daphnia pulex was selected as prey The shape of scanning area of P...

Bovine peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) were labelled with monoclonal antibodies recognizing bovine MHC class II, sIgM, monocyte, T-helper and T-cytotoxic cell phenotypes. They were sorted into positive and negative populations with a fluorescence-activated cell sorter (FACS). The cell populations were infected in vitro with sporozoites of either Theileria annulata or T. parva, and the...

A comparison of mean corpuscular volume (MCV) and packed cell volume (PCV) was made between cattle undergoing lethal and non-lethal reactions following experimental infections with the apicomplexan protozoa, Theileria parva Katete. This work confirmed that anaemia occurs in infected animals. However, the fall in PCV was steeper in lethal reactions compared to non-lethal reactions. Our results s...

A Macintosh computer-based audiometer (Virtual 320) was evaluated for reliability and validity of high-frequency (8-20 kHz) thresholds by comparison with a well documented laboratory high-frequency evaluation system (PARVA-HF). High-frequency earphones originally provided with the V320 for high-frequency testing required modification to improve reliability in calibration and in subject threshol...