Summary
Histopathological and electron microscopical studies were carried out on Litomosoides carinii infected Mastomys natalensis covering a period of 500 days p. i.
Animals developed a villous pleuritis during prepatency and, to an increasing extent, after the beginning of patency. Submesothelial cell proliferations, changing in composition in the course of the infection, led to massive accumulations of plasma cells. During patency, plasmacytosis was seen mainly perivascularly but also in all other organs investigated. Severe oedema occurred in the lungs after the beginning of patency (60 days p. i.). This had more or less disappeared by 90 days p. i. but was followed by marked, mainly histiocytic, infiltrations in the lung parenchyma. With increasing parasitaemia, granulomas of a mixed cellular type and endothelial changes were found in the lungs and liver. Kidneys of animals with patent infections showed extensive glomerulonephritis. Beginning 60 days p. i. there was marked splenomegaly. The spleen was congested and contained large numbers of blast and plasma cells, but the periarteriolar sheaths appeared involuted during patency. The paracortical areas of the lymph nodes (mediastinal, hepatic and inguinal) were often enlarged during prepatency and a hyperplasia of the follicles, accompanied by massive plasma cell infiltrations of the medulla, occurred at the beginning of patency whereas the paracortical areas appeared disaggregated and diminished in size. In the thymus, proliferation of the medulla and cortex was seen during prepatency and patency, respectively. Increasing numbers of mast cells were found in the pleura. Haemosiderin deposition was only moderately increased in the organs during patency.
The data are discussed in relation to immunological and pathophysiological events known in the course of the infection.
Zusammenfassung
Histopathologische und elektronenmikroskopische Studien bei Litomosoides carinii‐infizierten Mastomys natalensis
Litomosoides carinii‐infizierte Mastomys natalensis wurden histopathologisch und elektronenmikroskopisch untersucht. Die Untersuchungen erstreckten sich auf einen Zeitraum von 500 Tagen nach der Infektion.
Infizierte Tiere entwickelten im Verlauf der Präpatenz und zunehmend nach Beginn der Patenz eine villöse Pleuritis. Submesothehiale, in der Zusammensetzung im Infektionsverlauf wechselnde Zellproliferationen führten zu massiven Ansammlungen von Plasmazellen. In der Patenz bildete sich weiterhin eine allgemeine, vorwiegend perivaskulär zu beobachtende Plasmazytose aus. In der Lunge traten nach Beginn der Patenz (60 Tage p. i.) schwere Ödeme auf. Ihrem weitgehenden Rückgang bis zum 90. Tag p.i. folgte eine ausgeprägte, vorwiegend histiozytäre Infiltration der Lunge. Mit zunehmender Parasitämie traten in Lunge und Leber gemischtzellige Granulome und Endothelveränderungen auf. In den Nieren von Tieren mit patenten Infektionen zeigte sich eine massive Glomerulonephritis. Beginnend 60 Tage p. i. entwickelte sich eine Splenomegalie. Die Milz zeigte eine stark vermehrte B...
