The contribution of woodiniee (Apodemus sylvaticus), yellow-necked mice (Apodemus flavicollis) and bank voles (Clethrionomys glareolus) was compared in a focus of Lyme borreliosis in Switzerland during a 7 months’ study. All three species of mice and one species of shrews (Sorex araneus) were shown parasitized by infected Ixodes ricinus immatures. About 14% of larvae and 50% of nymphs collected on small mammals were infected with B. burgdorferi. Spirochetes were isolated from blood of 3 woodmice and one yellow-necked mouse. The infectious status of rodents was estimated by tick xenodiagnosis. Prevalence of infected rodents ranged from 20% to 44%. Mice presented a higher potential infectivity than voles. The prevalence of infected rodents showed a seasonal variation.
The methods of spatial statistics were applied to assess the geographical pattern of risk of Lyme borreliosis in Central Bohemia, the Czech Republic, based on retrospective data on disease contractions. The statistical risk was then compared at 15 selected localities with the infection challenge presented by ticks and insects carrying borreliae. Over 5,000 Ixodes ricinus (L.) ticks and 390 hacmatophagous dipterans were screened by direct immunofluorescence method, and the spatial and seasonal variance of infection rates were studied. Infected ticks were found at each locality throughout the warm season; in nymphs, sample infection rates ranged from 4.9% to 23.1% with a mean of 14.5% in spring, from 7.7% to 28.7% with a mean of 16.1% in summer, and from 7% to 20.6% with a mean of 13.6% in autumn. The statistical risk was found to correlate well with an average nymphal infection challenge, i.e. I. ricinus nymphal abundance x infection rate, at a given locality. Statistically significant cumulation of insect-history recalling patients into several, generally wetland, areas was ascertained; borreliae were revealed in 0.5% of the dipterans examined.
We investigated the renal response to direct renal nerve stimulation, 2 weeks following reversal of 24-h unilateral (left) ureteric obstruction. Renal nerve stimulation caused a 13-15 % fall in renal blood flow, in 4 groups of anesthetized rats following ureteric obstruction (n=9) or a sham operation (n=7) both with (n=9) and without (n=7) treatment with the mixed ETA/B receptor antagonist, bosentan. In the sham-operated rats, renal nerve stimulation did not change glomerular filtration rate but reduced urine flow rate (37±3 %, P<0.001), and absolute (38±4 %, P<0.001) and fractional (35±5 %, P<0.01) sodium excretion. Following unilateral ureteric obstruction, renal nerve stimulation increased glomerular filtration rate by 22±3 % (P<0.01), but reduced urine flow rate (14±2 %, P<0.001) and fractional sodium excretion (23±5 %, P<0.01). Bosentan treatment had no effect on baseline or renal responses to renal nerve stimulation in the sham group but normalized the renal response to renal nerve stimulation in the unilateral ureteric obstruction group. We conclude that 14 days after a 24-h period of unilateral ureteric obstruction there is an increase in GFR in response to direct renal nerve stimulation, which is due, in part, to the actions of endothelin at the time of obstruction., F. T. Hammad, A. M. Wheatley, G. Davis., and Obsahuje bibliografii