%0 Journal Article
%T Immunolocalization of TSOL18 and TSOL45-1A, the successful protective peptides against porcine cysticercosis, in Taenia solium oncospheres
%A Joel Martinez-Oca£ża
%A Mirza Romero-Valdovinos
%A Rina G de Kaminsky
%A Pablo Maravilla
%A Ana Flisser
%J Parasites & Vectors
%D 2011
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/1756-3305-4-3
%X Taenia solium is a cestode parasite that causes human neurocysticercosis, a public health problem in developing countries. The life cycle includes the adult tapeworm that grows in the human small intestine and cysticerci, the larval stage, which lodge in pig skeletal muscle and brain. The tapeworm has a scolex that anchors in the intestinal mucosa and is followed by a long row of proglottids, the initial ones are smaller and immature, the middle ones are mature and contain sexual organs and the last segments are the biggest and are gravid because they contain around 60,000 eggs each one. Inside the egg a hexacanth embryo, called an oncosphere, is surrounded by an oncospheral membrane and an egg shell or embryophore; proglottids and eggs are liberated with faeces. After ingestion of eggs by swine, the intermediate host, oncospheres are released and liberated from their membrane, becoming activated in the gut in order to cross the intestinal mucosa and transform into cysticerci. When an individual eats insufficiently cooked infected pork meat, the tapeworm develops [1].Humans can also acquire cysticercosis after ingesting eggs, this phenomenon is associated with poor health education and lack of sanitation; it is prevalent in pork eating countries of Latin America, Asia and Africa, generating neurocysticercosis, the most frequent and devastating parasitic disease of the brain [2]. Vaccines have been developed targeting the oncosphere and preventing establishment of the parasite in immunized pigs. The recombinant T. solium oncosphere proteins, designated as TSOL18 and TSOL45-1A, have been found to induce 99.5% and 97.0% protection respectively, in vaccine trials against the experimental challenge of pigs with T. solium eggs [3,4]. Thus, it is biologically relevant to identify the presence of these antigens in the developmental stages of T. solium.In order to localize the antigens on the parasite, blood samples from the pigs that were vaccinated with TSOL18, TSOL45-1A o
%U http://www.parasitesandvectors.com/content/4/1/3