Evaluation of a synthetic peptide from the Taenia saginata 18 kDa surface/secreted oncospheral adhesion protein for serological diagnosis of bovine cysticercosis

Abstract

Bovine cysticercosis is a zoonotic infection widely spread throughout Brazil, creating a burden on hygiene maintenance and the economy. Diagnosis of cysticercosis usually relies on post mortem inspection of carcasses in slaughterhouses. This detection method provides only low sensitivity. Recent advancements have improved the performance of serologic tests, such as ELISA, providing greater sensitivity and specificity. The objective of the current study was to identify and evaluate a synthetic peptide derived from the Taenia saginata 18kDa oncospheric surface protein for the diagnosis of bovine cysticercosis in ELISA. Test performance of the identified peptide was compared to an ELISA based on a heterologous crude Taenia crassiceps antigen (Tcra), widely used for the sero-diagnosis of bovine cysticercosis. Based on the primary sequence of an in silico structural model of the 18kDa protein, an epitope region designated EP1 was selected (46-WDTKDMAGYGVKKIEV-61). The peptide derived from this region yielded 91.6% (CI=80-96%) sensitivity and 90% (CI=82-95%) specificity when used in an ELISA, whereas the crude antigen yielded 70% (CI=56-8%) sensitivity and 82% (CI=73-89%) specificity. Thus, we conclude that EP1 has higher diagnostic potential for detecting bovine cysticercosis than the crude antigen Tcra.

Systematic review and meta-analysis of bovine cysticercosis in Brazil: current knowledge and way forward

“…In addition, we found 12 articles containing information about the spatial distribution of BCC inside/within the states (Table 1), 13 articles describing risk factors or variables associated with BCC occurrence ( Table 2) and 4 describing the economic burden of BCC [7,22,28,30]. Furthermore, a set of 10 studies performed in Brazil were also included, regarding at least one aspect presented in discussion section, such as efficacy of chemical treatment (n = 1) [62], preferential infection sites (n = 2) [63,64], development of serological tests (n = 4) [65][66][67][68] and measures for BCC control (n = 3) [69][70][71].…”

“…The use of serological analyses, such as Ag-ELISA, to detect infected animals also has been suggested but might not be feasible during slaughter [12]. However, serological analyses have been largely carried out, including in Brazil [65][66][67][68] and its use to detect infected animals has improved worldwide [90,95,96], allowing to perform well-designed epidemiological studies.…”

Spatial distribution of bovine cysticercosis—A retrospective study in Brazil from 2010 through 2015

“…All these information regarding cattle infection origin should be used in new models of meat inspection in order to improve cysticercosis detection and T. saginata-cysticercosis control in the country. For instance, the ongoing model of beef inspection could be more effective through use of incisions in sites not considered as preferential but reported as with high parasitism level (Lopes et al, 2011) or use of serological exams as a screening method (Guimarães-Peixoto et al, 2016), but their cost-effectiveness are unknown.…”

“…Other several practices can be useful in cysticercosis control such as the preventing fecal contamination of water, proper treatment and destination of urban and rural sewages, promotion of health education, ending informal slaughter (WHO/FAO/OIE, 2002), improvements in farmers education and pharmacological treatment of animals (Laranjo-González et al, 2016). Furthermore, improving serological tests to detect infected animals before their slaughter still critical to control the disease and decrease the prevalence (Guimarães-Peixoto et al, 2016).…”

Development of the multi-epitope chimeric antigen rqTSA-25 from Taenia saginata for serological diagnosis of bovine cysticercosis

“…The three-dimensional structure of Tsp36 was obtained from the Protein Data Bank (PDB, ID 2BOL) [ 8 ]. The structural model of TSA16 was constructed by homology from its amino acid sequence using the Protein Fold Recognition Server (PHYRE2) [ 20 ]. The stereochemical and energetic quality of the model was evaluated using the Ramachandran plot of Probity [ 21 ] and ProSA-web [ 22 ].…”