Quantitative determinations of agglutination of
hemocytes from oysters, Crassostrea virginica, by the
Lathyms odoratus lectin at five concentrations revealed
that clumping of hemocytes from oysters infected with
Perkinsus mannus is partially inhibited. Although the
nature of the hemocyte surface saccharide, which is not
D(+)-glucose, D(+)mannose, or alpha-methyl-D-mannoside,
remains to be determined it may be concluded that this
molecule also occurs on the surface of P. marinus.
It has been demonstrated that the panning technique
(Ford et al. 1990) is qualitatively as effective for
determining the presence of P. marinus in C. virginica as
the hemolymph assay method (Gauthier & Fisher 1990).
