Use of saponin in the preparation of brush border from a parasitic flatworm

Abstract

Saponin treatment in hypotonic or hypertonic fluids, followed by vibration, was used to isolate the brush border membrane from the surface epithelial syncytium of Hymenolepis diminuta. Electron microscopy of the membrane pellets and the parasites indicated that the area of the syncytium sheered by vibration of the parasites was correlated with the areas of the syncytium in which there occurred the greatest amount of osmotically induced swelling: below and adjacent to the brush border in hypotonic incubation, and the infoldings of the basal plasma membrane of the syncytium in hypertonic incubations. Vesiculation of the microvilli occurred in incubations made hypertonic with mannitol.