Authors

J Thompson¹; J Derrick²; KJ Else¹;  ¹ University of Manchester, UK;  ² Lydia Becker Institute of Immunology & Inflammation, UK

Discussion

Trichuriasisis a disease that affects ~465 million people worldwide resulting from infection by the intestinal dwelling parasitic nematode Trichuris trichiura, colloquially known as the human whipworm. Whipworm infections can cause colitis, growth retardation, and Trichuris dysentery syndrome (TDS). The current treatment strategies for Trichuriasis and other soil-transmitted helminths promoted by the World Health Organisation (WHO) involve mass drug administration (MDA) campaigns. However, the effectiveness of these MDA campaigns, particularly against T. trichiura, is poor. Low drug efficacy has fuelled the search for alternative treatments for Trichuriasis including the development of anti-T. trichiura vaccines, which have the potential to provide long lasting immunity. In a recent attempt to synthesize an effective vaccine candidate against whipworms,Zawawi et al genetically fused MCH-II T cell epitopes pertaining to chitin-binding domain-containing proteins (CBDs) and chymotrypsin-like serine proteases (CLSPs) conserved between Trichuris spp. to virus-like particles (VLPs). Building upon this vaccine candidate, we fused a Tetanus epitope to these modified VLPs with hopes to improve their immunogenicity and subsequently their effectiveness at eliciting protective immune responses against whipworms in vivo. However, using the Trichuris mouse model, T. muris, we found no significant correlates of protection resulting from vaccination with these VLPs in C57BL/6 mice against a high dose (200 eggs) T. muris infection. Therefore, further research and optimization of this VLP based anti-Trichuris vaccine candidate is required if it is to progress to clinical trials.