ALBERT

Notes: Heavy infections with enigmatic mobile organisms have recently been found in the blood of carp (Cyprinus carpio) in Central Europe. The organisms measure up to 15 μm, are variable in shape, and exhibit an unceasing twitching or dancing movement. Their developmental cycle starts with a primary cell enclosing a secondary cell. The former grows while the latter produces inside itself by a series of binary fissions and internal cleavages up to eight secondary cells, each of which encloses an inner (tertiary) cell of its own. In addition, up to four tiny cells with compact nuclei (“residual bodies”) also result from divisions of the secondary cells. Primary cells containing the products of the division of secondary cells finally disintegrate, releasing the secondary cells, which in their turn become new primary cells and repeat the cycle all over again. The structure and behavior of these organisms were so incompatible with existing ideas on myxosporean development that their myxosporean affinity was at first unrecognized. The final proof of their identity–appearance of myxosporean spores in sterile, experimentally infected hosts–is still to be presented. The interpretation of the myxosporean features of their life cycle (i.e., [1] the pericyte nature of the primary cell, [2] proliferation by disintegration of the pseudoplasmodial primary cell, [3] no rigidly fixed pattern in vegetative development), their ultrastructure (i.e., [1] characteristic bundles of microtubules and numerous free ribosomes in secondary cells, [2] lack of centrioles, [3] membranes enclosing the secondary cells within the primary cells), and facts on their epizootiology (i.e., [1] no success at transmission via leeches, [2] the occurrence of these organisms along with Sphaerospora renicola Dykova and Lom) suggest that they are stages of S. renicola from the kidney of carp. Similar mobile organisms were found in the blood of fry of two other fishes (Gobio gobi and Tinca tinca) which are also hosts for a Sphaerospora that infects the kidney. This suggests that these organisms represent an early phase in the developmental cycle in the genus Sphaerospora. The existence of cells enveloped one within the other (secondary and tertiary cells) in the developmental cycle, a characteristic myxosporean feature itself, is an intriguing parallel to similarly enclosed cells in sporogenesis of Paramyxea (Ascetospora).

Notes: Abstract Freshwater fish in Czechoslovakia were examined for species of the genus Sphaerospora Thélohan, 1892 and for myxosporean life cycle stages in the blood. In addition to perch infected with S. pectinacea Bocharova & Donets, 1974, renal tubules of seven host species harboured thus far unidentified Sphaerospora species. A new species, S. gobionis sp.nov. is described from renal tubules of Gobio gobio. In populations of Gobio gobio, Tinea tinea and Rutilus rutilus harbouring infections with different Sphaerospora species, organisms identified as mobile myxosporean life cycle stages were detected in the blood, where they undergo a proliferative cycle. These organisms were reminiscent of stages in the blood of common carp fingerlings, supposedly identical with Sphaerospora renicola Dyková & Lorn. It is possible that the blood stages found in the three cyprinid hosts represent stages of the life cycle of their respective Sphaerospora species. If this is correct, further studies may show if the presence of proliferative stages in the bloodstream is a character distinctive of the genus Sphaerospora.