Ascaris is a genus of parasitic nematodes that can cause infections in humans and pigs. During 2010-2013, we identified 14 cases of ascariasis in persons who had contact with pigs in Maine, USA. Ascaris spp. are important zoonotic pathogens, and prevention measures are needed, including health education, farming practice improvements, and personal and food hygiene.

1. Acetylcholine (ACh) elicited depolarization and an increase in input conductance of the somatic muscle cells of the parasitic nematode Ascaris suum. 2. The relative potency of nicotinic and muscarinic agents was studied in this preparation. The order of potency of these compounds was metahydroxy-phenylpropyltrimethylammonium (HPPT) greater than 1.1 dimethyl-4-phenylpiperazinium (DMPP) greate...

Group A consisted of chickens infected with a single dose of Ascaris suum and group B of chickens infected with two successive doses. At days 1, 3, 7, 14 and 21 after the first or second infection dose, six chickens from each group were sacrificed. In both groups, larvae were recovered from the livers on days 1, 3, and 7 and lungs on days 3 and 7. No larvae were detected in chickens on day 14. ...

Reuse of sewage biosolids in Victoria, Australia, typically involves mesophilic anaerobic digestion followed by air-drying and long-term storage to ensure removal of ova of soil-transmitted helminths (STH) such as Ascaris lumbricoides. Long-term storage degrades the biosolids' agronomic quality due to the loss of key plant nutrients and takes up large areas of storage space. The impact of varyi...

BACKGROUND Few studies have investigated the relative influence of individual susceptibility versus household exposure factors versus regional clustering of infection on soil transmitted helminth (STH) transmission. The present study examined reinfection dynamics and spatial clustering of Ascaris lumbricoides, Trichuris trichiura and hookworm in an extremely impoverished indigenous setting in r...

Ascaris lumbricoides infestations are endemic in tropical countries. Ascaris lumbricoides can occasionally cause biliary obstruction and result in obstructive jaundice or pancreatitis. We present a 34-year-old Bangladeshi woman with biliary ascariasis, resulting in recurrent pancreatitis. Her diagnosis was made with endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography performed during an acute attack...

The nucleotide sequences of the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) molecules of two nematodes, Caenorhabditis elegans [13,794 nucleotide pairs (ntp)], and Ascaris suum (14,284 ntp) are presented and compared. Each molecule contains the genes for two ribosomal RNAs (+rRNA and 1-rRNA), 22 transfer RNAs (tRNAs) and 12 proteins, all of which are transcribed in the same direction. The protein genes are the s...

The taxonomic status of Ascaris lumbricoides and A. suum is contentious: shall they be considered a single species? Yes, as argued by Leles et al. [1], and most recently debated through opposing views by Alves et al. [2] and Betson et al. [3]. Most taxonomic literature refers to two species, and results from investigations of the nuclear DNA of Ascaris isolates of human and pig origin suggest t...

We develop a one-dimensional physical model of the crawling movement of simple cells: The sperm of a nematode, Ascaris suum. The model is based on the assumptions that polymerization and bundling of the cytoskeletal filaments generate the force for extension at the front, and that energy stored in the gel formed from the filament bundles is subsequently used to produce the contraction that pull...