Coadministration of sodium alginate pellets containing the fungi Duddingtonia flagrans and Monacrosporium thaumasium on cyathostomin infective larvae after passing through the gastrointestinal tract of horses

Abstract

The predatory nematophagous fungi have been used as an alternative control of gastrointestinal nematodes of domestic animals in natural and laboratory conditions. However, it is unclear if the association of some of these species could bring some kind of advantage, from a biological standpoint. In this context, this study consisted of two tests in vitro: in assay A, the assessment of the viability of the association of pellets in sodium alginate matrix containing the fungus Duddingtonia flagrans (AC001) and Monacrosporium thaumasium (NF34) and its predatory activity on infective larvae (L3) of cyathostomin after passing through the gastrointestinal tract of horses and assay B, assessment of the cyathostomin L3 reduction percentage in coprocultures. Twelve crossbred horses, females, with a mean weight of 356 kg and previously dewormed were divided in three groups with four animals each: group 1, each animal received 50 g of pellets containing mycelial mass of the fungus D. flagrans and 50 g of pellets of the fungus M. thaumasium, associated and in a single oral dose; group 2, 100 g of pellets containing D. flagrans and 100 g of pellets containing M. thaumasium, associated and in a single oral dose; group 3, control. Faecal samples were collected from animals in the treated and control groups at time intervals of 12, 24, 36, 48, 60 and 72 h after the administration of treatments and placed in Petri dishes containing 2% water-agar (assay A) and cups for coprocultures (assay B). Subsequently, 1000 cyathostomin L3 were added to each Petri dish (assay A) and 1000 cyathostomin eggs were added to each coproculture (assay B) of fungi-treated and control groups. At the end of 15 days, there was observed that the two associations of pellets containing the fungi tested showed predatory activity after passing through the gastrointestinal tract of horses (assay A). In assay B, all the intervals studied showed reduction rate in the number of L3 recovered from coprocultures exceeding 80%. However, no difference (p>0.01) was seen in recovery of not predated L3 between the fungi-treated groups in the time intervals studied. The results obtained showed that the associations of pellets (50 or 100 g of each fungal isolate) were viable after passage through the gastrointestinal tract in horses and could be used in natural conditions.

Control of sheep gastrointestinal nematodes using the combination of Duddingtonia flagrans and Levamisole Hydrochloride 5%

“…Studies have focused on evaluating the efficacy of various species of fungus in different animal species, with different doses and in different environments BRAGA et al, 2009;TAVELA et al, 2013;VILELA et al, 2013VILELA et al, , 2016. Studies evaluating the effectiveness of nematophagous fungi in integrated nematodiasis control systems in association with use of chemical compounds are scarce.…”

Duddingtonia flagrans no controle de nematoides gastrintestinais de equinos em fases de vida livre

“…No controle de nematoides de equinos, diversos estudos já relataram eficácia de D. flagrans (Bird e Herd, 1994;Larsen et al, 1996;Madeira de Carvalho et al, 2007;Braga et al, 2009;Araujo et al, 2010;Braga et al, 2010;Braga et al, 2011;Paz-Silva et al, 2011;Tavela et al, 2013;Buzatti et al, 2015). A espécie se destaca pela capacidade de produzir grande quantidade de clamidósporos, estruturas reprodutivas com parede espessa e altamente resistente, que, se ingeridos, percorrem o trato gastrintestinal dos animais e permanecem viáveis quando nas fezes.…”

Action of the nematophagous fungusPochonia chlamydosporiaonDioctophyma renaleeggs

“…The ovicidal effects of the fungus Pochonia chlamydosporia on eggs of different genera of geohelminths and biohelminths have shown promising results under laboratory conditions, which in the future can be extrapolated to natural conditions (Braga et al, 2012;Tavela et al, 2013). The giant kidney worm, Dioctophyma renale, is the largest nematode known (Bowman, Linn, Eberhard, & Alcaraz, 2006).…”