Molecular Pharmacology, Vol 4, 407-410, Copyright © 1968 by the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics

Effects of Anticestodal Agents on Mitochondria from the Nematode, Ascaris lumbricoides

¹ Department of Pathobiology, The Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland 2l205

Several anticestodal drugs were shown previously to inhibit the mitochondrial ³²P-ATP exchange reaction in the cestode Hymenolepis diminuta. It was postulated, on the basis of similarities in their energy metabolism, that the same anticestodal agents should also inhibit the exchange reaction in the mitochondria of the nematode, Ascaris lumbricoides. Most of these compounds did effectively inhibit the reaction in the nematode mitochondria, indicating that the selective toxicity for cestodes is a result of differences in permeability between the two groups of helminths.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This investigation was supported in part by Grants AI 05290 and 5T01-AI-00149 from the National Institutes of Health, United States Public Health Service. We would like to thank Drs. L. Runeberg, O. D. Standen, K. Bowden, R. Gönnert, and J. L. Morrison for supplying anticestodal drugs and the 5-nitrofurfurylidine hydrazide of 3,5-dinitrosalicylic acid. We also wish to thank the Schluderberg-Kurdle Company, Inc. (Baltimore), for its generous help in the collection of the adult ascarids used in these investigations.