Behavior of the infection and morphologic differentiation of Trypanosoma cruzi and T. rangeli in the intestine of the vector Rhodnius prolixus
Vallejo, G.A.; Marinkelle, C.J.; Guhl, F.; de Sánchez, N.
Revista Brasileira de Biologia 48(3): 577-587
1988
ISSN/ISBN: 0034-7108 PMID: 3070649 Document Number: 311770
Studies were made of the distribution of amastigote-like, epimastigote, sphaeromastigote and trypomastigote forms of Trypanosoma cruzi (stock Molino) and T. rangeli (stock San Agustin), in the intestine of Rhodnius prolixus. Five hundred kinetoplasts from the different developmental stages of the two species were measured to evaluate the reliability of this character as a method of identifying. The majority of trypomastigotes of the both species could be differentiated by the body length and the size of their kinetoplasts. However, in some infections, with abundant typical forms of T. rangeli, less than 1% of the short epimastigotes were morphologically indistinguishable from those of T. cruzi. Such false positives could have grave implications.