Ultrastructure of eggs of Ascaris lumbricoides Linnaeus, 1758. I. Egg-shells.

Under the light microscope the chitin-protein layer of egg-shells in ascarids appears to be a regular, hyaline and nonstructural layer of 1.5 to 2.00 microns in thickness. The outer uterine layer is usually removed during the preparation. The lipid (ascaroside) layer covers the inner surface of the chitinous layer and seems to be irregularly undulated and regularly thick over the whole surface, with the thickness up to 1 micron. In electron micrographs the fibrous structure of the lipid layer is not evident as a rule. This is probably due to washing the lipids away from this layer during the dehydration of deeper layers of egg-shells that are imperfectly fixed with glutaraldehyde. A very low permeability of the egg-shells is typical of geohelminth eggs. The layer lipid shows a distinct lamellate structure only after a prolonged fixation with osmium at higher temperature. This is supported by the studies using the method of freeze-fracturing.