An-Najah Staff

Control measures to prevent human infections with the food-borne zoonotic helminth Taenia saginata are currently based on meat inspection, which shows rather low diagnostic sensitivity. To develop an immunoblot for detection of T. saginata infected cattle, crude proteins of T. saginata cysts were extracted and separated with SDS-PAGE. The cyst antigens showed 10 protein bands ranging from 260 to 14 kDa. T. saginata cyst proteins 260, 150, 130, 67, 60, 55, 50 and 23 kDa were immunoreactive with known positive sera of T. saginata infected cattle but cross-reacted with sera from Echinocccus granulosus infected ruminants. By contrast, 14 and 18 kDa cyst proteins reacted specifically with T. saginata positive sera and thus might be potential candidates for the development of a T. saginata specific immunoassay. Proteins of E. granulosus cysts and T. hydatigena cysts were also extracted and separated with SDS-PAGE. E. granulosus cysts revealed 11 protein bands ranging from 260 to 23 kDa. E. granulosus protein 60 kDa was immunoreactive with E. granulosus positive sera only. The cyst of T. hydatigena showed 11 protein bands ranging from 290 to 14 kDa. The protein band 35 kDa showed cross reaction with both, positive sera from T. saginata and E. granulosus infected animals. A protein of 67 kDa was present in all three tested cestode species and was the major antigenic protein detected by sera of T. saginata and E. granulosus infected animals. Therefore, this protein represents a potential vaccine candidate against both, cysticercosis and cystic echinococcosis in cattle.