The role of Wolbachia in heartworm disease

摘要

The possible role of the endosymbiont Wolbachia in canine and feline heartworm disease was the topic of several presentations at the 12th Triennial American Heartworm Society symposium, held here in conjunction with the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) annual conference. Wolbachia is a gram-negative intra-cellular bacterium of heartworms, some other filarial nema-todes and some arthropods, according to the panelists. Although there are species of filarial ne-matodes that do not carry Wolbachia, it seems that all individual Dirofilaria immitis filarial nematodes carry them. The degree of infection varies among individual worms and the ratio of Wolbachia to worm DNA depends in part on the life stage of the heartworm parasite, the panelists said.