Encephalitozoon cuniculi genotype III disseminated intensively into most of the organs in all strains of mice, followed by a chronic infection with massive microsporidia persistence in immunodeficient mice and a partial decrease in C57Bl/6 mice. Treatment with 0.2 mg Albendazole/mouse/day temporarily reduces the number of affected organs in immunocompetent C57Bl/6 mice, but not in CD4^−/− and CD8^−/− mice. The application of medication temporarily decreased the spore burden at least by one order of magnitude in all groups.

These results demonstrate that the E. cuniculi genotype III infection had a progressive course and surprisingly, Albendazole treatment had only a minimal effect. The E. cuniculi genotype III spore burden in individual organs reached up to 10⁸ or 10⁹ in immunocompetent or immunodeficient mice, respectively; however, these mice did not demonstrate any obvious clinical signs of microsporidiosis, and the immunodeficient mice survived longer. Our findings clearly show that the survival of mice does not correspond to spore burden, which provides new insight into latent microsporidiosis from an epidemiological point of view.

在所有小鼠品系中，Cuniculi cuniculi基因型III广泛散布到大多数器官中，随后在免疫缺陷小鼠中持续存在大量微孢子虫持续存在的慢性感染，而C57Bl / 6小鼠则部分减少。用0.2 mg阿苯达唑/小鼠/天治疗暂时减少了具有免疫功能的C57Bl / 6小鼠的受影响器官数量，但没有减少CD4 ^-/-和CD8 ^-/-小鼠的受影响器官数量。在所有组中，药物的施用暂时减少了至少一个数量级的孢子负担。

这些结果表明，cu.cuniculi基因型III感染具有进行性病程，令人惊讶的是，阿苯达唑治疗仅具有最小的作用。在E.脑炎微孢子虫在个别器官基因型III孢子负担达到高达10 ⁸或10 ⁹在免疫活性或免疫缺陷的小鼠，分别; 但是，这些小鼠没有表现出任何明显的微孢子虫病的临床体征，免疫缺陷小鼠的存活时间更长。我们的发现清楚地表明，小鼠的存活并不对应于孢子负荷，这从流行病学的角度为潜伏的小孢子虫病提供了新的见识。