Analysis of Circulating Haemocytes from Biomphalaria glabrata following Angiostrongylus vasorum Infection Using Flow Cytometry.pdfVIP

Hindawi Publishing Corporation Journal of Parasitology Research Volume 2012, Article ID 314723, 6 pages doi:10.1155/2012/314723 Research Article Analysis of Circulating Haemocytes from Biomphalaria glabrata following Angiostrongylus vasorum Infection Using Flow Cytometry Thales A. Barc¸ante,1, 2 Joziana M. P. Barc¸ante,2 Ricardo T. Fujiwara,3 and Walter S. Lima3 1 Departamento de Medicina Veterinaria, Pontifıcia Universidade Catolica de Minas Gerais (PUC Minas), ´ ´ ´ 30535-901 Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil 2 Departamento de Medicina Veterinaria, Preventiva, Universidade Federal de Lavras, 37200-000 Lavras, MG, Brazil ´ 3 Departamento de Parasitologia, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, 31270-901 Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil Correspondence should be addressed to Joziana M. P. Barc¸ante, joziana@dmv.ufla.br Received 3 November 2011; Revised 6 January 2012; Accepted 7 January 2012 Academic Editor: C. Genchi Copyright © 2012 Thales A. Barc¸ante et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Angiostrongylus vasorum is an emerging parasite of dogs and related to carnivores that have an indirect life cycle, with a wide range of terrestrial and aquatic gastropods as the obligatory intermediate host. Unfortunately, the relationship between A. vasorum and their snail hosts remains poorly understood. Circulating haemocytes are the main line of cellular defence involved in the destruction of helminths in snails. Aiming to further characterize the haemocyte subsets in Biomphalaria snails, w