Some properties of the surface of nematode larvae

The nature of complement binding to the surface to infective larvae of Trichinella spiralis and Nippostrongylus brasiliensis differs. When worms were incubated in serum from uninfected hosts, washed and incubated in fluorescent reagent the whole surface of T. spiralis fluoresced but in N. brasiliensis fluorescence was confined to the anterior end and some internal organs. The outer structure of the cuticle of the T. spiralis larvae was shown not to contain ATP-ase, thus differing from many cell membranes.