B ack ground : Cysticercosis is one of 20 tropical diseases classified as neglected by the World Health Organization (WHO). As the pathogenesis of cysticercosis is not yet clear, there is no vaccine that can completely cure the disease. This study attempts to identify the proteins of adult and larvae of Taenia solium by mass spectrometry, predict the function of differential proteins so as to further study the Pathogenic mechanism of larvae to host. This provides clues for the cysticercosis prevention and treatment.
Methods: In our study, we separated proteins of adult and larvae of Taenia solium by High Performance Liquid Chromatography(HPLC) fractionation, and protein samples were also digested in liquid and identified by liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry(LC-MS/MS); the differentially expressed proteins were then processed by a bioinformatics and parallel reaction monitoring (PRM) analysis .
Results: Our results showed that the 3658 proteins identified, 2481 contained quantitative information, according to the relative quantitative analysis of the protein expression level by label-free quantification, differentially expressed proteins between the two treatments were identified applying a P value < 0.05 and a twofold change threshold, of which 293 proteins were up-regulated whereas 265 proteins were down-regulated. Through the bioinformatics analysis, we found some proteins that were associated with the immune effector process in addition to diagnostic antigens and therapeutic targets.
Conclusion: We conclude that the results facilitate a better understanding of the complexity of the cestode life cycle, mechanism to counter the host immune system, and host–parasite interactions in both developmental stages. Evading the host immune response may be key for the establishment of latent and persistent infections by cysticercus. Therefore, understanding the mechanisms through which the parasites manipulate the host immune response for their survival is important to our understanding of the intricate parasite-host interaction. Further studies are required to identify what function those proteins are, it may contribute to the development of novel strategies and vaccines against cysticercosis.