1.An outbreak of malaria in penguins at the Farm-land Zoo.
Ung Bok BAK ; Jae Chan PARK ; Young Jae LIM
The Korean Journal of Parasitology 1984;22(2):267-272
In June of 1983 authors had investigated the occurrence of the avian malaria in the Humboldt penguins imported from Japan to the Farm-land Zoo in central district of Korea. The disease was characterized by acute course and high mortality. The peripheral blood smears from the affected penguins demonstrated different developmental stages of Plasmodium sp. in the mature erythrocytes. The predominant gross lesions noticed were pulmonary and epicardial edema and hepato-splenomegaly. Microscopically the lesions were characterized by extensive reticuloendothelial cell hyperplasia with striking feature of exoerythrocytic schizogony affecting a variety of tissues. The report also signifies the first description of a disastrous epizootic of avian malaria in Korea.
parasitology-protozoa
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malaria
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penguin
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Plasmodium sp.
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hepatosplenomegaly
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case report
2.Blood transcriptome resources of chinstrap (Pygoscelis antarcticus) and gentoo (Pygoscelis papua) penguins from the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica
Bo Mi KIM ; Jihye JEONG ; Euna JO ; Do Hwan AHN ; Jeong Hoon KIM ; Jae Sung RHEE ; Hyun PARK
Genomics & Informatics 2019;17(1):e5-
The chinstrap (Pygoscelis antarcticus) and gentoo (P. papua) penguins are distributed throughout Antarctica and the sub-Antarctic islands. In this study, high-quality de novo assemblies of blood transcriptomes from these penguins were generated using the Illumina MiSeq platform. A total of 22.2 and 21.8 raw reads were obtained from chinstrap and gentoo penguins, respectively. These reads were assembled using the Oases assembly platform and resulted in 26,036 and 21,854 contigs with N50 values of 929 and 933 base pairs, respectively. Functional gene annotations through pathway analyses of the Gene Ontology, EuKaryotic Orthologous Groups, and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) databases were performed for each blood transcriptome, resulting in a similar compositional order between the two transcriptomes. Ortholog comparisons with previously published transcriptomes from the Adélie (P. adeliae) and emperor (Aptenodytes forsteri) penguins revealed that a high proportion of the four penguins’ transcriptomes had significant sequence homology. Because blood and tissues of penguins have been used to monitor pollution in Antarctica, immune parameters in blood could be important indicators for understanding the health status of penguins and other Antarctic animals. In the blood transcriptomes, KEGG analyses detected many essential genes involved in the major innate immunity pathways, which are key metabolic pathways for maintaining homeostasis against exogenous infections or toxins. Blood transcriptome studies such as this may be useful for checking the immune and health status of penguins without sacrifice.
Animals
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Base Pairing
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Gene Ontology
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Genes, Essential
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Genome
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Homeostasis
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Immunity, Innate
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Islands
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Metabolic Networks and Pathways
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Molecular Sequence Annotation
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Sequence Homology
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Spheniscidae
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Transcriptome