immunogenic effect of purified antigens of B Alexandrina against S Mansoni in experimental animals [II] as measured by the histopathological changes in the liver

ABSTRACT

The objective of this work was to test the immunogenic effect of 2 purified non-infected B. alexandrina hepatopancreas through histopathological changes in liver of Swiss albino mice [15 - 20 g]. Gel filtration chromatography was used to fractionate the crude antigen into 5 fractions, followed by re-fractionation and determination of their molecular weights by sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis [SDS-PAGE]. Four dilutions of Fiv [20000 - 29000 daltons] and Fv [20000 - 240000 daltons] were injected in 2 groups of mice [33 each] at weekly intervals and another control group was injected with phosphate buffer saline [PBS] in the same manner. Sacrification was done at 7 weeks from infection with 100 S. mansoni cercariae through immersion method. The results revealed that there were marked histopathological changes in liver of the control group in comparison with the 2 vaccinated groups, which appeared more or less normal with slight inflammatory infiltrate