C. elegans cultured in medium containing heme (hemoglobin), replaces the use of agar plates with an E. coli lawn. While this axenic culture method is a simpler and faster method for providing large numbers of clean, active adult nematodes, the isotonic M-9 medium has no protein and was more suitable to keep C. elegans for screening purposes. By using the

selective sieves described here, it is possible to collect many adults within one week in see more a small volume of medium. Freezing the culture medium in small volumes makes it rapidly available when needed, in any quantity, compared to preparation of E. coli inoculated agar plates. As a result, one person could screen at least six tests with results available in 48 h instead of 72–96 h using agar plates with E. coli. The funding sources had no influence in the study design, collection, analysis, interpretation of data, in the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to submit ZD1839 cell line the manuscript for publication. The authors declare no conflict of interest. Mention of trade names or commercial products in this publication is solely for the convenience of the reader and does not imply endorsement of the U.S. Department of Agriculture over similar products. The USDA is an equal opportunity

provider and employer. The authors are grateful for the financial support from CAPES-Brazil and for the partial support provided by a specific cooperative agreement between the Appalachian Farming Systems Research Center (USDA-ARS) and the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State

University (Virginia Tech). We greatly appreciate the support of Dr. David Chitwood (USDA-ARS Nematology Lab) and his technical and scientific staff at the onset of Astemizole this work. We are also grateful for the encouragement from Dr. David Belesky and the efforts of Mr. Marc Peele (AFSRC, USDA-ARS) with C. elegans cultures. “
“Apicomplexan parasites Neospora caninum and Toxoplasma gondii share many morphological features, however present distinct biological properties ( Hemphill et al., 2006 and Innes and Mattsson, 2007). T. gondii has been widely researched in the last century and infection in birds was reported after three years of its first description ( Nicolle and Manceaux, 1908 and Splendore, 1908), in liver and spleen smears of a naturally infected pigeon ( Carini, 1911). From that point on, in numerous reports have been published about T. gondii infection in birds, with higher concentration of articles between 1940–60s, when researchers found out that avian Toxoplasma was the same parasite that caused illness in humans and other mammals ( Dubey, 2002). On the other hand, natural infection by N. caninum in wildlife birds has been described only once, in captured sparrows ( Gondim et al., 2010).