Immunization against Taenia crassiceps cysticercosis: identification of the most promising antigens in the induction of protective immunity.

Cross immunity between Taenia solium and Taenia crassiceps parasites points to T. crassiceps cysticercosis as a convenient model to test promising antigens aimed at the development of a vaccine against T. solium cysticercosis. Since total antigens from T. crassiceps metacestodes induce significant levels of protection in pigs against T. solium cysticercosis, we initiated this work to identify the most interesting antigens involved in protection. Twelve different antigen fractions isolated from T. crassiceps cysticerci were evaluated with respect to their capacity to induce resistance against a challenge with 10 T. crassiceps cysticerci in male BALB/cAnN mice. Mice were intraperitoneally immunized with 2 doses of each antigen, 5 or 15 micrograms per mouse. The 12 antigen fractions were classified as protecting (200, 123, 74, 66, 56, 40-50, 27 and 8-14 kDa), facilitating (220-205 kDa), or irrelevant (150-160, 93, 108 kDa), according to their effect on the parasite load. The 3 most promising antigen fractions were reevaluated via subcutaneous immunization with Freund's complete adjuvant. A high level of protection was obtained when antigen fractions of 56, 66, and 74 kDa were used together. Interestingly, antigens with similar molecular weights were also detected in early steps of differentiation in T. solium cysticercosis. These observations may be helpful in the development of a synthetic or a recombinant vaccine against cysticercosis.