Studies on Theileria Parva in Whole-Body Irradiated Mice

Abstract

Theileria parva, the causative agent of East Coast fever (E. C. F.) of cattle, has never been grown successfully in small laboratory animals, and the only animals of proven susceptibility are cattle and two species of buffalo (Syncerus caffer and Bubalus bubalis). A number of workers have made unsuccessful attempts to establish T. parva in a variety of animals including rabbits, mice, guinea-pigs, hamsters, rats, hyraxes and chick embryos [1-4]. The failures encountered by these earlier workers can be partly attributed to lack of suitable infective material, and partly to host resistance. We have attempted to overcome these problems, firstly by using a source of material. of known high infectivity for cattle, i.e. T. parva macro schizont-infected bovine lymphoid cells in tissue culture (5), and secondly by reducing the host response using whole-body irradiation.