Parasitology

Biography

Biography: Wafaa EL-Komy

Abstract

Cysteine proteases are important virulence factors for parasites. Cathepsin B (Sm CB) proteases are abundant in different stages of Schistosoma and it have been identified to induce a level of host-protective immune responses with amelioration of morbidity. In this study, the parasitological parameters, level of immunoglobulins, cytokines profile and hepatic granuloma were assessed to study the effect of immunization of mice with cathepsin B antigen with or without treatment using anti-helminthic drug (PZQ). Multiple small doses of cathepsin B were intraperitoneally injected into naive mice; the first dose of a 100μg of purified (Sm CB) was followed by two booster doses of 50μg each, at weekly intervals. The experimental design included five groups of 10 mice each; four batches of them were infected with a 100 S. mansoni cercariae as follows: One batch served as infected control, another one was immunized prior to infection, the third was pre-immunized and post-PZQ treated and finally the fourth one was post-treated with PZQ only. The fifth group was mice immunized with cathepsin B only. All groups were sacrificed 8 and 12 weeks post infection. The histopathological and parasitological examinations revealed the highest remarkable increase in the percentage of degenerated ova (12%) within the diminished hepatic granulomas and the most significant decline percentage of the worm burden (46%), tissue egg loads (42.8% and 50% for hepatic and intestinal ova, respectively) were experienced by the infected pre-immunized and post-treated mice. The data collected from this research study might be useful in developing potential vaccine against S. mansoni.