Human cysticercosis and taeniasis: molecular approaches for specific diagnosis and parasite identification.

The construction and antibody screening of Taenia solium cDNA libraries, generated in the Escherichia coli bacteriophage lambda gt11, with the identification of clones putatively expressing antigen B, T. solium-specific and other antigens is described. Lysogens were produced from a number of selected clones and beta-galactosidase fusion peptides ranging in Mr of approximately 135,000-150,000 were demonstrated. These proteins were shown by immunoblotting to be reactive with a pool of sera from cysticercotic patients originally used in the cDNA library screening. We report a method whereby Taenia (T. saginata and T. pisiformis) eggs can be detected with high sensitivity in a specific DNA dot-blot hybridisation assay using total parasite DNA as probe. We show also that intra-specific DNA variability occurs in T. solium isolates obtained from different geographical areas and discuss the potential significance of this heterogeneity.