The general chemical composition of muscle Trichinella spiralis larvae

THE GENERAL CHEMICAL COMPOSITION OF MUSCLE TRICHINELLA SPIRALIS LARVAE

BY

ZOFIA

ZBIGNIEW KOZAR

The Institute of Marine Medicine in

and the Department of Parasitology of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw

Though the chemical structure of T. spiralis larvae was partially discussed in a number of works, the main attention was hitherto paid to establishing the anti- genically most active fractions separated by means of various methods (Bachman, 1928; Taliaferro, 1929; Melcher et Campbell, 1942; Melcher, 1943; Portwood et Sanders, 1946; Aikawa, Harrel et Helsabeck, 1946 and others). The aim of our:

work was the definition of the proportional chemical composition of Trichinella spiralis in various development stages.

* Research supported by the U. S. Atomie Energy Commission.

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Below we give the results of chemical determination performed on muscle larvae. The

for these investigations was obtained from swine infected 50 days ago with Trichinella. Using the digestion method, the method of repeated decantation of larvae through sieves, the method of washing etc., a rather pure mass of stili live muscle larvae was obtained. After water removal, the weight of fresh substance was determined for each sample of the isolated larvae. Then the

materiał

was lyophilized and in this state preserved as to the moment of performing the chemical determination.

The dry substance contained in larvae was determined by drying the lyophi- lized

at a temperature of 100°C up to a constant weight. The inorganic compounds were quantitatively determined by weighing, after having incinerated the dry substance in a muffle furnace. For further investigations dry substance was used from previously pulverized larvae. lt was extracted by an ether-ethanol roixture, according to Folsch's method (J. Biol. Chem. 1951), and in this way freed from lipids. The percentage of lipids contained in the extraxt, was determined.

Then the lipid free dry pow der was extracted with 6° /

hot perchlorid acid, after Schneider's procedure (J. Biol. Chem. 1945). The ribonucleic acid and desoxyri- bonucleic acid in the extract . were estimated by means of the orcinol method with diphenylamine reagent. For this estimation the modification according to Ogar and Rosen (Arch. Biochem. 1950) was applied. The insoluble residue after perchloric acid extration was used for protein estimation, according to Folin-Cio- calteau's method in Lowry's modification (J. Biol. Chem. 1951). The other lipid free samples were used for determination of carbohydrate contents. These contents were expressed as glucose or glycogen (Hagedorn-Jensen: Biochem. Z., 1923;

Trevelyan et Harrison: Biochem. J., 1952). In still other samples the total amount of nitrogen was determined by applying the Kjeldahl's method.

The

chemical composition of muscle T. spiralis, examined in several experiments, is the following (the proportional values are calculated on fresh sub- stance):

Dry substance Inorganic substances Proteins

Lipids Nucleic acids

Carbohydrates (expressed

9.42±0.6 0.34±0.05 6.24±0.20 l.25±0.06 0.07 ± 0.005 as glucose) l.82±0.02

As we see from these data, there is a relationship between the amount of dry substance and the amount of individually estimated components. The muscle larvae of T. spiralis contain about 89.90 to 90.58% of water and 9.42 to 10.02° /

of clry substance. About 63° /

of dry substance belongs to proteins, and 18.3° /

to lipids.

0.68% of the dry substance falls to the share of nucleic acids (0.450fo ofribonucleic

and 0.230/o of deoxyribonucleic acid). Under conditions of our experiment the ratio

STRESZCZENIA REFERATÓW

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RNA:DNA is equal to 1.99. 19.86/o of the dry substance falls to the share of carbo- hydrates. The dry powder of this

contained 9.96% of nitrogen.

The muscle larvae of T. spiralis contain a relatively smaller amount of dry sub- stance in comparison with such tapeworms as: Echinococcus granulosus (Agosin et al., 1957), Cysticercus tenuicol/is (Schopper, 1932) or Diphyllobothrium sp. (Archer et Hopkins, 1958). The amount of proteins in T. spiralis larvae, in larvae of the above mentioned parasites and Fascio/a hepatica oscillates in a range of 60-70° /

of the dry substance. The contents, however, of carbohydrates in our

were similar to those in Echinococcus granulosus.