Skin surface lipids of the domestic chicken, and neutral lipid standards as stimuli for the penetration response of Austrobilharzia variglandis cercariae.

Lipids were extracted from the skin of 2-wk-old domestic chickens using sterile cotton gauze dampened with chloroform:methanol (2:1). Preparative thin-layer chromatography separated the skin lipids into six major fractions: phospholipids, free sterols, free fatty acids, triglycerides, methyl esters, sterol esters. The penetration response of the marine avian schistosome cercaria, Austrobilharzia variglandis, to chicken skin lipid fractions, and to neutral lipid standards, was tested by coating lipids on agar in a Petri dish containing a seawater overlay. All neutral lipids tested produced significantly greater penetration responses than the chloroform control. The phospholipid skin fraction killed cercariae. Lipid from whole chicken skin produced the greatest penetration response, followed by free fatty acids and free sterol skin fractions. Of the standards tested, the whole neutral lipid standard, containing cholesterol, oleic acid, triolein, methyl oleate, and cholesteryl oleate, produced the greatest response, followed by the cholesterol standard and the oleic acid standard.