Infectivity of Trypanosoma rhodesiense cultivated at 28 degrees C with various tsetse fly tissues.

Metacyclic trypanosomes developed in populations of procyclic forms of four stocks of Trypanosoma brucei rhodesiense cultivated at 28 degrees C in a liquid medium containing explants of tsetse fly head-salivary glands, alimentary tract, abdominal body wall, or thoracic muscle. The cultures became infective for mice 7-16 days after they were prepared, and infective trypanosomes were present for prolonged periods. In the culture series of stock TRUM 545, infectivity persisted for 138 days when the cultures were terminated. Only one explant of thoracic muscle tissue was required for the production of metacyclic stages in stock TRUm 497 cultures. Infectivity titrations on trypanosome suspensions from cultures of stocks TRUM 497, TRUM 454, and TRUm 567 revealed that only a small proportion of the culture population was infective. Using stock TRUM 530, mice were infected consistently from inoculations of trypanosomes grown in the presence of explants; infectivity of the trypanosomes eased when the explants were removed from the flasks, but reappeared when they were returned to the cultures. Parasites grown in medium "conditioned" by explants produced sporadic infections in mice. The control cultures of trypanosomes grown in medium alone were generally not infective, but two of the stocks produced occasional parasitemias. Stained samples of infective inocula contained a few epimastigote-like and metacyclic-like trypanosomes.