ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Trichinellosis, caused by Trichinella spiralis, is a serious foodborne parasitic zoonosis. Tibetan pig is an infrequent, endemic plateau pig species, mainly distributed in Tibet Plateau, China. Because of the free-range system, Tibetan pigs are at risk of infection with Trichinella. The present study aimed to primarily profile the characteristics of T. spiralis infection in Tibetan pigs, including IgG levels, larvae burdens, and cytokines. RESULTS: The immune responses to Chinese Tibet T. spiralis isolate infection in Tibetan pigs with different doses were investigated in a tracking duration of 49 days. The muscle larvae per gram (lpg) were evaluated at 105 days post-infection (dpi). The results showed that the mean larval number of T. spiralis in Tibetan pigs increased with infective dose, with average lpg values of 3.5, 50.4 and 115.6 for Tibetan pigs infected with 200, 2,000, and 20,000 muscle larvae (ML) of T. spiralis. The anti-Trichinella IgG increased with inoculum dose and dpi, and peaked at 49 dpi. The kinetics of cytokines in the sera was detected by microarray, including interferon-γ (IFN-γ), interleukin (IL)-1ß, IL-8, IL-12, IL-4, IL-6, IL-10, Granulocyte-macrophage Colony Stimulating Factor (GM-CSF), tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α and transforming growth factor (TGF)-ß1. The Th1/Th2 mixed cytokines were detectable in all samples. Interleukin-12 demonstrated the highest concentration compared to other cytokines and peaked at 42 dpi. Almost all cytokines were maintained at a high level at 42 dpi. Additionally, we also report a Trichinella seropositive rate of 43.9 % (18 out of 41) from field samples of Tibetan pigs. CONCLUSIONS: The present study showed an increased Th1/Th2 mixed cytokines in Tibetan pigs elicited by T. spiralis. The high seroprevalence of Trichinella infection in field samples of Tibetan pigs further raises serious concern for the prevention and control of trichinellosis in this host for public health safety.
Subject(s)
Swine Diseases/parasitology , Trichinella spiralis/immunology , Trichinellosis/veterinary , Animals , Antibodies, Helminth/blood , Cytokines/blood , Immunoglobulin G/blood , Larva/immunology , Muscles/parasitology , Prevalence , Seroepidemiologic Studies , Swine , Swine Diseases/epidemiology , Swine Diseases/immunology , Tibet/epidemiology , Trichinella spiralis/growth & development , Trichinella spiralis/isolation & purification , Trichinellosis/epidemiology , Trichinellosis/immunologyABSTRACT
Echinococcosis is an age-old disease that causes serious damage to the animal husbandry and the human health perennially. As a newly discovered species of Echinococus, E. shiquicus has the potential public health significance and could be a potential parasitic zoonosis. In this review, its etiology, life cycle, epidemiology, detection and diagnoses, public health etc. are discussed or summarized. Also, a series of comparisons among E. granulosus, E. multilocularis and E. shiquicus are made.
ABSTRACT
Objective To study the specificity, sensitivity of diagnostic antigen for Trichinella spiralis(T. s). Methods T668 recombinant protein from highly efficient expression of newborn larvae stage-specific gene of T. s in E. coli as diagnostic antigen. By using negative and positive sera from rabbit, pig, human as the first antibody, and goat-anti-rabbit IgG, goat-anti-pig IgG, goat-anti-human IgG labeled with HRP as the secondary antibody, indirect ELISA method was established for detecting anti-T.s antibody, while excretory-secretory (ES) antigen of T.s muscle larvae was used as control. Results Sera from rabbit, pig and human were detected by T668 recombinant protein as antigen, which showed a positive rate of 100% with 0.016 ?g/well. There was no difference on the results between the T668 recombinant antigen and the ES antigen for diagnosing T. s-infection. Conclusion The T668 recombinant antigen is promising in substituting ES antigen in the detection of anti-T. s antibody.
ABSTRACT
Objective To clone a stage-specific novel cDNA from 5 day-old adult worm (ADS) of Trichinella spiralis. Methods The cDNA library of AD5 was screened by an AD5 stage-specific cDNA probe labeled with digoxigenin (DIG). The positive clones were sequenced and analysed. Results The positive clone contained a cDNA insert of 1 132 bp in length with a full length open reading frame (ORF) of 1 032 bp. The cDNA encoded a polypeptide of 343 amino acid residues(aa) with a molecular weight of 35.1 kDa and an isoelectric point (IP) of 4.8. InterProScan analysis showed that the 117 - 120 aa (SGYG) was a glycosaminoglycan attachment site, 27- 86 aa was nematode cuticle collagen N-terminal domain and 153-228 aa was collagen repeat (G-x-y) domain. Signal PV2.0 analysis indicated that the region of 1-43 aa was a singal peptide. Blastn homology analysis in Genbank revealed that the cDNA had no obvious homology to any other known gene sequence. Blastp analysis revealed high homology to cuticle collagen with identities more than 40 % . Conclusion A novel ADS stage-specific cDNA encoding a full length ORF was cloned and sequence analysis showed this gene encoded cuticle collagen of Trichinella spiralis.
