A highly expressed intestinal cysteine protease of Ancylostoma ceylanicum protects vaccinated hamsters from hookworm infection.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Human hookworms (Necator americanus, Ancylostoma duodenale, and Ancylostoma ceylanicum) are intestinal blood-feeding parasites that infect ~500 million people worldwide and are among the leading causes of iron-deficiency anemia in the developing world. Drugs are useful against hookworm infections, but hookworms rapidly reinfect people, and the parasites can develop drug resistance. Therefore, having a hookworm vaccine would be of tremendous benefit.

Methodology/principal findings

We investigated the vaccine efficacy in outbred Syrian hamsters of three A. ceylanicum hookworm antigen candidates from two classes of proteins previously identified as promising vaccine candidates. These include two intestinally-enriched, putatively secreted cathepsin B cysteine protease

SUBMITTER: Noon JB 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6497320 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature