Next-Generation Technologies and Systems Biology for the Design of Novel Vaccines Against Apicomplexan Parasites

Abstract

Parasites of the phylum Apicomplexa are the causative agents of important diseases such as malaria, toxoplasmosis or cryptosporidiosis in humans, and babesiosis and coccidiosis in animals. Whereas the first human recombinant vaccine against malaria has been approved and recently recommended for wide administration by the WHO, most other zoonotic parasitic diseases lack of appropriate immunoprophylaxis. Sequencing technologies, bioinformatics, and statistics, have opened the “omics” era into apicomplexan parasites, which has led to the development of systems biology, a recent field that can significantly contribute to more rational design for new vaccines. The discovery of novel antigens by classical approaches is slow and limited to very few antigens identified and analyzed by each study. High throughput approaches based on the expansion of the “omics”, mainly genomics and transcriptomics have facilitated the functional annotation of the genome for many of these parasites, improving significantly the understanding of the parasite biology, interactions with the host, as well as virulence and host immune response. Developments in genetic manipulation in apicomplexan parasites have also contributed to the discovery of new potential vaccine targets. The present minireview does a comprehensive summary of advances in “omics”, CRISPR/Cas9 technologies, and in systems biology approaches applied to apicomplexan parasites of economic and zoonotic importance, highlighting their potential of the holistic view in vaccine development.

What Do We Know about Surface Proteins of Chicken Parasites Eimeria?

“…Although the first live vaccines against chicken coccidiosis were developed in the 1950s [ 27 ], only two non-live vaccines have reached the market, these are Coxabic ® (Abic, Israel) [ 28 ] and Vac COX ® (Vetanco S.A) [ 29 ], this last one only commercially available in Argentina. One main barrier in protozoal vaccinology relates to the complex life cycles [ 30 ]. Furthermore, coccidiosis is caused by multiple species infections, and developing a universal vaccine that protects against heterologous species is not a simple goal to achieve.…”

Genetic Manipulation Toolkits in Apicomplexan Parasites

“…More recently, genetic tools for targeted manipulation at the DNA, RNA and protein levels have been developed. Although these methods have greatly accelerated biological studies on these pathogens [13,14], no single tool is universally applicable to all genetic manipulation purposes, and each has advantages and drawbacks. In this review, we summarize common strategies currently used for targeted gene manipulation in several apicomplexan parasites, including Toxoplasma, Plasmodium, Babesia, Cryptosporidium and Eimeria.…”