Bruno R. Campos, Alessandro P. Cardozo, Fernando D'Incao & Wilson Wasielesky Jr.
Marine Aquaculture Station Federal University of Rio Grand Rio Grand/RS - Brazil
Manow@mikrus.com.br
Mycobacteriosis is a systematic and granulomatous disease, which produce tissue damage with marked proliferative tissue response, usually granulomatous, with lymphocytes, epithelioid histiocytes and some multinucleated giant cells.
The mycobacterial infection have been observed in several species of both invertebrate and vertebrate animals, and that in the crustacean is well defined in species such as Litopenaeus vannamei grown in wild animals are few observations and specifically Pleoticus muelleri not this work have registered for this reference disease. The red-shrimp or santana-shrimp, as is popularly called, as a wide geographical distribution, being present in the Southwest Atlantic off the coast of Espírito Santo (Brazil) to Santa Cruz (Argentina) (Boschi, 1989). The highest concentrations occur in the Patagonian coast (Argentina), in areas with temperatures between 6 ° C and 20 ° C and salinity from 31.5 to 33.5 (Boschi, 1986). The aim of this study was to analyze the occurrence of mycobacteriosis in the red shrimp through histopathology.
The animals showed irregular black spots on various body parts and carapace more intense in caudal region (Fig. 1). The histopathologic study showed both the cuticle and the muscle formations with abundant encapsulated pigment melanin appearance. Masson Fontana technique confirmed that the pigment was melanin. The removal of melanin staining allowed for the search for pathogens, the PAS was negative so discard mold and the Fite-Faraco could observe the presence of acid-resistant mycobacteria (Fig. 2). The micobaceriosis are often diagnosed as penaeid shrimp Litopenaeus vannamei cultura. We present examples of Pleoticus muelleri with mycobacteriosis cuticular and muscular, we believe that this is the first recorded cases of this disease in this species of shrimp.