Naegleria lovaniensis tarasca New Subspecies, and the Purepecha Strain, a Morphological Variant of N. I. lovaniensis, Isolated from Natural Thermal Waters in Mexico

Abstract

Amoebae were isolated from a natural thermal water source in Michoacán, Mexico, in September 1986. Two 500-ml samples were taken from pools with water at 45 degrees C and 46 degrees C and concentrated at 2,000 g for 15 min. The sediment was seeded on nonnutritive agar plates and incubated at 42 degrees C. The isolates were axenized in bactocasitone-serum medium. The identification of the isolates was based on their morphology, total protein and isoenzyme patterns by agarose isoelectric focusing, serology, fine structure, agglutination with Concanavalin A, sensitivity to trimethoprim, capacity to kill mice, and their cytopathic effect in Vero cells. The results showed several morphophysiological, biochemical and serological differences between the isolates and the type strain Aq/9/1/45D of Naegleria lovaniensis. These remarkable differences provide sufficient evidence to consider one of the isolates a new subspecies, and the other one a morphological variant of N. l. lovaniensis, which can be differentiated from other Naegleriae by their morphology, biochemistry, serology and physiology. The authors propose the name tarasca for the subspecies and purepecha for the morphological variant.

The identification of free-living environmental isolates of amoebae from Bulgaria

“…FLA are amphizoic protozoa that are ubiquitous in nature. They have been found in soil, fresh water lakes (Johan and De Jonckheere 1985), swimming pools (Janitschke et al 1980;Kadlec 1981), therapeutic pools, tap water (Visvesvara and Stehr-Green 1990), natural thermal water (Rivera et al 1990), and air samples (Rodriguez-Zaragoza and Magana-Becerrs 1997) from all over the world. These amoebae can survive severe conditions by forming resistant cysts.…”

Microorganisms Resistant to Free-Living Amoebae

“…Biofilms such as those found on contact lenses and dental unit water lines can support the growth of free-living amoebae (14,62). Free-living amoebae such as Hartmanella, Naegleria, and Acanthamoeba have also been recovered from drinking water (111,181), cooling towers (13), natural thermal water (200,201), swimming pools (59), hydrotherapy baths (60,215), and hospital water networks (206). Several free-living amoebae were also recovered from marine water.…”

Biodiversidad de protistas amébidos de vida libre en México

“…marginata (Sokoloff, 1931), Arcella vulgaris var. undulata (Sokoloff, 1931), Fumarolamoeba ceborucoi (De Jonckheere, 2011) y Naegleria lovaniensis tarasca (Rivera et al, 1990). Se esperaría encontrar un elevado número de nuevas especies en nuestro país, puesto que todavía quedan amplias regiones y numerosos hábitats que no han sido investigados.…”

“…A lo largo de 20 años el Dr. Rivera conjuntó los aspectos ambientales y médicos de las amibas, realizando la mayor parte de su trabajo en la entonces Escuela Nacional de Estudios Profesionales Iztacala de la UNAM. Esto explica el incremento notable de especies que se observa durante estos años y el amplio dominio del número de especies registradas para el D. F. y otros estados del centro del país, especialmente estudiados por este autor y sus colaboradores como parte del inventario sobre amebas de vida libre de México (Rivera et al, 1978a(Rivera et al, , 1978b(Rivera et al, , 1979(Rivera et al, , 1981(Rivera et al, , 1983(Rivera et al, , 1984a(Rivera et al, , 1984b(Rivera et al, , 1986(Rivera et al, , 1987(Rivera et al, , 1988(Rivera et al, , 1989(Rivera et al, , 1990(Rivera et al, , 1992(Rivera et al, , 1993(Rivera et al, , 1994Lugo et al, 1991Lugo et al, , 1998Gallegos-Neyra, 1992Rodríguez-Zaragoza, 1994;Omaña, 1997;Bonilla et al, 1999;Gallegos-Neyra et al, 1999, 2006Rodríguez Zaragoza et al, 2005;Ramírez et al, 2009, 2010, otros estudios sobre el tema se realizan en el Instituto Tecnológico de Sonora (Lares-Villa et al, 1993, 2001; Lares-Jiménez y Lares-Villa, 2009) y en la Escuela Nacional de Ciencias Biológicas, IPN (Rojas, 2007). En el laboratorio de Protozoología de la Facultad de Ciencias, UNAM, se efectúan algunos trabajos sobre amibas en diversos ambientes naturales (Aladro et al, 2007;Sigala-Regalado y Mayén-Estrada, 2008;Sigala-Regalado et al, 2011).…”