Schistosoma Tegument Proteins in Vaccine and Diagnosis Development: An Update

Abstract

The development of a vaccine against schistosomiasis and also the availability of a more sensitive diagnosis test are important tools to help chemotherapy in controlling disease transmission. Bioinformatics tools, together with the access to parasite genome, published recently, should help generate new knowledge on parasite biology and search for new vaccines or therapeutic targets and antigens to be used in the disease diagnosis. Parasite surface proteins, especially those expressed in schistosomula tegument, represent interesting targets to be used in vaccine formulations and in the diagnosis of early infections, since the tegument represents the interface between host and parasite and its molecules are responsible for essential functions to parasite survival. In this paper we will present the advances in the development of vaccines and diagnosis tests achieved with the use of the information from schistosome genome focused on parasite tegument as a source for antigens.

Immunization with Brugia malayi Myosin as Heterologous DNA Prime Protein Boost Induces Protective Immunity against B. malayi Infection in Mastomys coucha

“…It has long been observed that the acquired immunity to tegumental, sub-tegumental and internal antigens of Scistosome develops due to experience of parasitic antigen which gets speed up by treatment [34–37]. Most of the proteins identified by helminth proteomics have been found in ESP in previous studies, including cytoskeletal proteins (i.e.…”

The helminth parasite proteome at the host–parasite interface – Informing diagnosis and control

“…Interleukin (IL)-5 driven eosinophilia fastened the development of filarial nematodes in a mice study and adults produced more and earlier microfilariae (Babayan et al, 2010). Establishment of helminthic parasites in the host is also important for diagnosing infection and better diagnostics are still required for human helminth infections (Zhong et al, 2010;Colley et al, 2014;Fonseca et al, 2012;Doenhoff et al, 2004). Serological reactivity is routinely used for diagnosing helminth infection, but a lack of sensitivity and specificity means that helminth diagnosis can be poor especially at low infection levels (Zhong et al, 2010;Colley et al, 2014;Doenhoff et al, 2004;Carmona et al, 2012;Vacirca et al, 2011).…”

Molecular and functional characterization of a putative PA28γ proteasome activator orthologue in Schistosoma mansoni

“…Using high-throughput screening approaches, several new drugs have been found to show chemotherapeutic promise [11–16], although further testing is still needed before any new drugs can be considered as true replacements for praziquantel. Likewise, identification and testing of various antigens as potential vaccine targets is being actively pursued [17, 18], but progress in this area has been slow and prospects are not good for developing an effective, highly protective vaccine in the foreseeable future [19, 20]. With a limited repertoire of tools for effectively combating schistosomiasis, the completion and continued annotation of the Schistosoma mansoni genome [21], now serves as a critically important resource for identifying genes with potential as drug or vaccine targets as well for exploring new functional-genomic technologies such as gene-transfer/transgenetics [22–24], RNA interference (RNAi) [25–27] and high-throughput RNAseq methodologies for detailed gene expression/interactome analyses [28, 29].…”