Long term survival of formalin preserved Cyclospora

[Joan Marie Shields]

Brent Barrett <salbrent at iquest.net> wrote:
>Does someone  have any experience or knowledge about the long term survival
>of formalin preserved Cyclospora oocysts? I have spoke with  two reliable
>persons, each who provided contrasting views. One person stated the oocysts
>disappears very quickly; less than one week. The other person stated the
>oocysts were intact but had variable staining  after several months of
>storage.

I store my oocysts (for long-term storage) in 2.5% potassium dichromate - 
it's easy to wash off and there doesn't seem to be any problems with 
staining or molecular work.  I have heard from numerous sources that
prolonged storage in formalin can cause problems with subsequent acid-fast
staining (there are a number of articles about this).  There is an 
alternate staining method developed by those at the CDC.  You can find
the reference for this method and others at the CDC's parasitic disease
www site (go through the CDC homepage and through NCID).

joan 
-- 
Joan Shields       jshields at uci.edu       http://www.ags.uci.edu/~jshields
University of California - Irvine         School of Social Ecology
Department of Environmental Analysis and Design
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