In recent years, there has been a rapid decrease in amphibian populations worldwide, and infectious diseases have been associated with this decline. Diseased frogs inhabiting Korea were collected from fields, and the diseases were identified by morphological and molecular analyses. Two fungal diseases-saprolegniasis and chromomycosis-were detected in the frogs. Saprolegniasis caused by Saprolegnia spp. was found in Rana plancyi chosenica from Gangwon-do and Rana huanrenensis from Chungbuk. Chromomycosis, which is caused by infection with Cladosporium cladosporioides, was detected in Rana catesbeiana from Busan.
Amphibians ; Chromoblastomycosis ; Cladosporium ; Communicable Diseases ; Korea ; Rana catesbeiana ; Ranidae ; Saprolegnia

OBJECTIVETo determine the origin of Rana temporaria for quality Oviduetus Ranae in the light of historical documents and modern researches on the classification of Rana temporaria chensinensis.

METHODWorks of Chinese meteria medica of all ages, related historical documents and reports from home and abroad on researches of R. temporaria chensinensis were consulted, sorted out, analyzed and summarized.

RESULTThe original Shange recorded in the works of Chinese meteria medica is R. temporaria chensinensis, which is the independent species, not one of species of European forest frogs. R. temporaria chensinensis is divided into 4 subspecies: R. temporaria chensinensis, Lanzhou, Kangding, and Changbaishan. The origin of R. temporaria is Changbaishan subspecies of R. temporaria chensinensis.

CONCLUSIONChangbaishan subspecies of R. temporaria chensinensis is determined as the origin for quality Oviduetus Ranae.

Animals ; Female ; History, 18th Century ; History, 19th Century ; History, 20th Century ; History, Ancient ; Materia Medica ; history ; isolation & purification ; Oviducts ; chemistry ; Rana temporaria ; anatomy & histology ; Ranidae ; anatomy & histology ; classification ; Species Specificity ; Terminology as Topic

OBJECTIVETo discuss the problem about the origin of Oviduetus Ranae in the Chinese Pharmacopoeia according to historical documents, the researches reported recently and the author research.

METHODThrough comprehensive analysis of the documents and materials reported, the original animal sources of Oviduetus Ranae was discussed in terms of historical records, morphology, karyotype, Ag-Belt and isoenzyme electrophoresis, gene levels and so on.

RESULT AND CONCLUSIONThe original animal sources of Oviduetus Ranae is Rana dybowskii,its order element is an effective species in China. In order to avoid the problem of species confusion about the origin of Oviduetus Ranae, author suggests that R. dybowskii should be the original animal of Oviduetus Ranae.

Animals ; China ; Medicine, Chinese Traditional ; Ranidae ; classification ; genetics

AIMTo introduce the manufacture and use of a simple, new type of drop recorder of frog heart.

METHODSTo improve the perfusion device of (see text for symbol) and Straub method. Two electrodes of drop recorder were fixed in an injector of 20 ml. The input tube, output tube and resistance tube were all made of plastic material.

RESULTSThis device could be used to observe effects of preload, after-load, hormone and electrolyte on the cardiac output in isolated frog heart.

CONCLUSIONThe new type of drop recorder was economical and could be easily operated, it could be also connected to computer. Using the new type of drop recorder, effects of various physical and chemical factors on cardiac function could be observed directly, accurately.

Animals ; Electrodes ; Heart ; physiology ; Infusion Pumps ; Ranidae ; Weights and Measures ; instrumentation

A new trichostome ciliate, Balantidium honghuensis n. sp., was isolated from the recta of Rana nigromaculata and R. limnocharis during parasite surveys in Honghu Lake, Hubei Province, central China in summer of 2010 and 2011. Its detailed morphometric characters based on LM and SEM studies were described herein. The organism is oval in shape and thickly ciliated. The vestibulum is "V" shaped and occupies about 1/3 to 2/5 of the body length. The vestibular and nearby regions possess strong peripheral fibers which form a marked axial fiber about the cytopharynx. More than 10 contractile vacuoles are distributed along the periphery of the latter body. Comparisions were made between this new species and B. sinensis Nie, 1935. They were discriminated from each other in terms of general body forms, body size, and vestibulum shapes. Besides, special attention was paid to its high-speed daughter swarmers which we believed to be the infective stage of B. honghuensis. Possible infection routes of anura amphibian balantidia were discussed.
Animals ; Balantidiasis/parasitology/*veterinary ; Balantidium/classification/*isolation & purification/physiology ; China ; Ranidae/*parasitology ; Rectum/*parasitology

In the present study, we identified a Spirometra species of Myanmar origin (plerocercoid) by molecular analysis using mitochondrial cox1 and nad1 genes, as well as by morphological observations of an adult tapeworm. Spargana specimens were collected from a paddy-field in Taik Kyi Township Tarkwa Village, Yangon, Myanmar in December 2017. A total of 5 spargana were obtained from 20 frogs Hoplobatrachus rugulosus; syn: Rana rugulosa (Wiegmann, 1834) or R. tigrina (Steindachner, 1867). The plerocercoids were used for experimental infection of a dog. After 4 weeks of infection, an adult tapeworm was recovered from the intestine of the dog. Morphologically, the distinct features of Spirometra sp. (Myanmar origin) relative to S. erinaceieuropaei and S. decipiens include a uterine morphology comprising posterior uterine coils that larger than the terminal uterine ball and coiling of the uteri diagonally (swirling) rather than spirally. The cox1 sequences (1,566 bp) of the Myanmar-origin Spirometra species showed 97.9% similarity to a reference sequence of S. decipiens (GenBank no. KJ599679) and 90.5% similarity to a reference sequence of S. erinaceieuropaei (GenBank no. KJ599680). Phylogenetic tree topologies were identical and presented high confidence level of values for the 3 major branches of the 3 Spirometra species in cox1 and nad1 genes. These results indicated that Myanmar-origin Spirometra species coincided with those of S. ranarum and may be considered as a valid species.
Adult ; Animals ; Cestoda ; Dogs ; Genes, vif ; Humans ; Intestines ; Myanmar ; Ranidae ; Spirometra ; Trees ; Uterus

The dielectric behavior of the frog skeletal muscle cells in the 100 Hz-100 MHz range was simulated with dielectric ellipsoidal-shell model, and the model's parameters were put forward for the first time. It could serve as a theoretical foundation on which to make analysis of muscle fatigue, muscle malnutrition and muscle atrophies in the future.
Animals ; Electric Conductivity ; Electric Stimulation ; Electrophysiology ; instrumentation ; methods ; Models, Theoretical ; Muscle, Skeletal ; physiology ; Ranidae

The evolution, structure and antigenic epitopes prediction of Rana dybowskii antimicrobial peptide dybowskin-1ST were carried out using bioinformatics software available online. Its antibacterial mechanism and structural properties were analyzed, and its activity was verified by applying wound healing assay in mice and bacteriostatic assay in vitro. This provides the theoretical basis for the improvement of parental peptide and the development of novel derivative peptides. The software MEGA_X were used to conduct homology alignment and to construct a phylogenetic tree. The online software ProtParam, ProtScale, PeptideCutter, signal, TMHMM Server were respectively used to predict the physicochemical parameters, hydrophilia/hydrophobicity, shear sites, signal peptides, and transmembrane domains of dybowskin-1ST. The online software SOPMA, Jpred4, DNAstar Protean were used to predict the secondary structure of dybowskin-1ST, and SWISS-MODEL, I-TASSER were used to predict the tertiary structure. ABCpred and SYFPEITHI were respectively used to predict its B-and T-cell epitopes. The effect of dybowskin-1ST on the wound healing was observed on experimental mice. Kirby-Bauer method and dilution method were used to determine the bacteriostatic activity of dybowskin-1ST. The dybowskin-1ST consists of 59 amino acid residues, of which leucine accounts for 16.9%, with a molecular formula of C₃₁₈H₅₁₀N₈₀O₉₃S₂. Its theoretical isoelectric point is 5.10 and the charge is -2. The dybowskin-1ST and dybowskin-1CDYa are closely related phylogenetically. The secondary structure of dybowskin-1ST predicted by the three methods were similar, which consisted of α-helix (44.07%), extended strand (16.95%), β-turns (3.39%), and random coil (35.39%). The prediction of tertiary structure showed that dybowskin-1ST was mainly composed of α-helix, and it was regarded as a hydrophilic protein with signal peptide sequence. Subcellular localization analysis showed that the probability of secreting the mitochondrial targeted peptides was 0.944. Dybowskin-1ST is an extracellular protein with no transmembrane structure region, but contains seven phosphorylation sites, three T-cell epitopes and eight B-cell epitopes. The dybowskin-1ST promoted wound healing and effectively inhibited the growth of Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus. However, it had limited antibacterial activity against fungi and drug-resistant bacteria. Although the structure of dybowskin-1ST is rich in α-helix, the verification experiments showed that its antibacterial ability needs to be enhanced. The reason may be that it is a negatively charged and hydrophilic protein, and amino acid modification with the aim of increasing the number of positive charges and changing the hydrophobicity may be used to obtain derived peptides with enhanced activity.
Amino Acid Sequence ; Animals ; Mice ; Phylogeny ; Pore Forming Cytotoxic Proteins ; Protein Structure, Secondary ; Ranidae

Adiponectin receptor 1 (AdipoR1) and Adiponectin receptor 2 (AdipoR2) can bind to adiponectin (AdipoQ) secreted by adipose tissue to participate in various physiological functions of the body. In order to explore the role of AdipoR1 and AdipoR2 in amphibians infected by Aeromonas hydrophila (Ah), the genes adipor1 and adipor2 of Rana dybowskii were cloned by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and analyzed by bioinformatics. The tissue expression difference of adipor1 and adipor2 was analyzed by real-time fluorescence quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR), and an inflammatory model of R. dybowskii infected by Ah was constructed. The histopathological changes were observed by hematoxylin-eosin staining (HE staining); the expression profiles of adipor1 and adipor2 after infection were dynamically detected by qRT-PCR and Western blotting. The results show that AdipoR1 and AdipoR2 are cell membrane proteins with seven transmembrane domains. Phylogenetic tree also shows that AdipoR1 and AdipoR2 cluster with the amphibians in the same branch. qRT-PCR and Western blotting results show that adipor1 and adipor2 were up-regulated at different levels of transcription and translation upon Ah infection, but the response time and level were different. It is speculated that AdipoR1 and AdipoR2 participate in the process of bacterial immune response, providing a basis for further exploring the biological functions of AdipoR1 and AdipoR2 in amphibians.
Animals ; Receptors, Adiponectin/metabolism* ; Phylogeny ; Adiponectin/metabolism* ; Cloning, Molecular ; Ranidae/genetics*

A survey was performed to find out the intermediate hosts of Gnathostoma nipponicum in Jeju-do (Province), the Republic of Korea. In August 2009 and 2010, a total of 82 tadpoles, 23 black-spotted pond frogs (Rana nigromaculata), 7 tiger keelback snakes (Rhabdophis tigrinus tigrinus), 6 red-tongue viper snakes (Agkistrodon ussuriensis), and 2 cat snakes (Elaphe dione) were collected in Jeju-do and examined by the pepsin-HCl digestion method. Total 5 gnathostome larvae were detected in 3 (50%) of 6 A. ussuriensis, 70 larvae in 3 of 7 (42.9%) R. tigrinus tigrinus, and 2 larvae in 2 of 82 (8.7%) frogs. No gnathostome larvae were detected in tadpoles and cat snakes. The larvae detected were a single species, and 2.17x0.22 mm in average size. They had characteristic head bulbs, muscular esophagus, and 4 cervical sacs. Three rows of hooklets were arranged in the head bulbs, and the number of hooklets in each row was 29, 33, and 36 posteriorly. All these characters were consistent with the advanced third-stage larvae of G. nipponicum. It has been first confirmed in Jeju-do that R. nigromaculata, A. ussuriensis, and R. tigrinus tigrinus play a role for intermediate and/or paratenic hosts for G. nipponicum.
Animals ; Gnathostoma/*isolation & purification/ultrastructure ; Gnathostomiasis/parasitology/*veterinary ; Host Specificity ; Humans ; Larva ; Ranidae/*parasitology ; Republic of Korea ; Snakes/*parasitology