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Biomphalaria tenagophila is very important for schistosomiasis transmission in Brazil. However its mechanisms of interaction with Schistosoma mansoni are still scantly studied. Since this snail displays strains highly susceptible or completely resistant to the parasite infection, the knowledge of that would be a useful tool to understand the mechanism of snail resistance. Particularly, the Taim strain consistently shows absolute resistance against the trematode, and this resistance is a dominant character. A multidisciplinary research group was created aiming at studying B. tenagophila/S. mansoni interaction. The possibility for applying the knowledge acquired to obtain a biological model for the control of S. mansoni transmission in endemic areas is discussed.

The anesthetic effect of some water-soluble anesthesic or narcotic drugs currently used in mice was tested in molluscs of the Biomphalaria genus. Sodium thiopental was very toxic to the snails resulting in high rates of mortality in all the treatment schedules tested. Cetamine base, at concentration of 0.25 mg/ml of water, resulted in partial snail anesthesia (40% of snails were anesthetized) only after 20 h of exposition. The association of Cetamine base with Tiazine chloridrate did not improve the anesthesic effect, and higher concentrations of these drugs were toxic to the snails. Sodium pentobarbital at 0.4 mg/ml in water for 8 h was the best treatment schedule to anesthetize Biomphalaria snails. In this schedule, the snails were anesthetized without any toxic effect. The procedure provides a powerful tool for in vivo studies that demande a complete state of snail anesthesia.

Index code	Element
ti	article title
au	author
kw	article keywords
subject	subject (title words, abstract and keywords)
ab	abstract
ta	journal short title (e.g. Cad. Saúde Pública)
journal_title	journal full title (e.g. Cadernos de Saúde Pública)
la	publication language code (e.g. pt - Portuguese, es - Spanish)
type	document type
pid	publication identifier
publication_year	publication year of publication
sponsor	sponsor
aff_country	country code of the author's affiliation
aff_institution	author affiliation institution
volume	article volume
issue	article issue
elocation	elocation
doi	DOI number
issn	journal ISSN
in	SciELO colection code (e.g. scl - Brasil, col - Colômbia)
use_license	article usage license code

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