A SIMPLE METHOD OF PREPARING CLEAN INTACT GRANULOMAS AND GRANULOMA CELLS FROM LIVERS OF DEFINITIVE HOSTS INFECTED WITH EITHER SCHISTOSOMA-MANSONI OR SCHISTOSOMA-JAPONICUM

The drawback of existing techniques for obtaining intact granulomas an d granuloma cells have been, (1) lack of clean intact granulomas witho ut adhering liver tissues, (2) isolating inadequate numbers of clean i ntact granulomas, and (3) obtaining low numbers of viable granuloma ce lls from the granulomas. This work aims at developing a method which e liminates these problems. C57B1/6 mice and baboons have been utilized as definitive hosts. Major emphasis has been on Schistosoma mansoni li ver egg granuloma, though some work was carried out using S. japonicum . The work demonstrates that it is possible to obtain enough clean liv er granulomas and large numbers of granuloma cells from animals with s chistosome infection by using two stages of digestion with collagenase . However, one needs to adjust the concentration of collagenase and al so the periods of incubation, depending on the parasite and the host s pecies. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.