Amoebae with a strange object in the nucleus

Ecki · Post by **Ecki** » Fri Jun 03, 2011 12:27 pm

Some time ago, when I looked at some Amoebae, I found a surprising object in the nucleus. In the literature there are amoebae (e.g. Paramoeba perniciosa) that have a "Nebenkörper" that was supposed to contain DNA. Nowadays this is regarded as some form of a parasite.

I did not find any reference to this phenomenon to occur in sweet water.

40x

Crop

All amoebae in my sample contained this "Nebenkörper".

40x

Maybe someone has an idea or has seen this before?

Regards
Ecki

seed · Post by **seed** » Fri Jun 03, 2011 12:31 pm

Well I can't be certain as the color's all wrong, but it looks to me like sunny-side-up. Nuclei get hungry, too

I know I'm no help, just wanted to say "nice photo"!

Mitch640 · Post by **Mitch640** » Fri Jun 03, 2011 1:36 pm

Ecki, your the stainmaster. Maybe there is some way to stain it to narrow down what the intruder is?

As always, great images.

bromodomain · Post by **bromodomain** » Sat Jun 04, 2011 3:24 am

Intriguing

The second shot is brilliant. Was this an isolated case or where there other amoebae with such intranuclear inclusions? How did the strange structure behave?

Ecki · Post by **Ecki** » Sat Jun 04, 2011 11:55 am

The second picture is a crop of the first picture. All Amoebae showed the strange object in the nucleus (picture 3).

Mitch, staining will not reveal more than the DIC image is showing.

BJ · Post by BJ » Sat Jun 04, 2011 1:09 pm

Hi,

i have seen stained nebenkorper (= "parasomes" for me) in marine amoebae in diseased fish gills. My recollection is that they were very small (only a few um)..perhaps smaller than your organism. As you say, i think they are exclusively in marine amoebae.

However, there are microsporidian nuclear parasites in freshwater amoebae. I´ve never seen them myself (well maybe i have, but I am not as observant as you !!).

Thanks for a very interesting post,
I shall look more carefully at amoebae in future!

Muito obrigado,
Brian

Ecki · Post by **Ecki** » Sun Mar 29, 2015 11:56 am

Some riddles get finally resolved.

This is probably the the sporangium of the fungus Nucleophaga amoebae Dangeard 1894.

Best regards,
Ecki

Bruce Taylor · Post by **Bruce Taylor** » Mon Mar 30, 2015 5:20 am

A cousin of Rozella! Interesting how many of the most basal fungi specialize in amoebae.

BJ · Post by BJ » Mon Mar 30, 2015 6:37 am

Congratulations on resolving this mystery and very interesting!

Thank you for the update,

Brian

fpelectronica · Post by **fpelectronica** » Mon Mar 30, 2015 8:49 am

Very beautiful images. Interesting

carlos.uruguay · Post by **carlos.uruguay** » Mon Mar 30, 2015 10:28 am

Excellent images and absolutely interesting topic