immunoproteomic analysis of the excretory-secretory proteins from spirometra mansoni sparganum.

background: sparganosis is caused by the invasion of spirometra sparganum into various tissues/organs. subcutaneous sparganosis can be diagnosed by biopsy , while visceral/cerebral sparganosis is not easy to be diagnosed. the diagnosis de-pends largely on the detection of specific anti-sparganum antibodies. t he specific-ity of the elisa could be increased by using s. mansoni sparganum excretory– secretory (es) antigens, but it also had the cross-reactions with sera of p atients with cysticercosis or paragonimiasis . the aim of this study was to identify early specific diagnostic antigens in s. mansoni sparganum es proteins . methods: the sparganum es proteins were analyzed by two-dimensional electro-phoresis (2-de) and western blot probed with early sera from infected mice at 14 days post-infection. the immunoreactive protein spots were characterized by maldi-tof/ tof-ms. results: a total of approximately 149 proteins spots were detected with isoelectric point (pi) varying from 3 to 7.5 and molecular weight from 20 to 115 kda and sev-en protein spots with molecular weight of 23-31 kda were recognized by the infec-tion sera. three of seven spots were successfully identified and characterized as the same s. mansoni protein (cysteine protease), and the proteins of other 4 spots were not included in the databases. conclusion: the cysteine protease from s. mansoni es proteins recognized by early infection sera might be the early diagnostic antigens for sparganosis.