Head of the Department University of Illinois Rockford, Illinois, United States
Abstract Text: Heartworm infections in canines and felines cause severe weight loss, exercise intolerance, cough, and labored breathing, leading to heart and kidney failure. The disease is caused by Dirofilaria immitis, a filarial nematode parasite, and is transmitted by mosquitoes. Currently, there are no vaccines available to control the infection. In this study, we selected four genes of D. immitis, based on their reactivity to immune dog sera and previous published reports and their homology to vaccine antigens reported from other closely related filarial parasites. The recombinant tetravalent protein was commercially synthesized at Genscript. After removing the endotoxin from the preparation, mice (n=10) were immunized three times at two-week intervals with 15 μg of the recombinant antigen and 100 μg of AL019 adjuvant (Alum + GLE, a TLR-4 agonist). Titer of IgG was measured in the sera of immunized mice after each immunization and showed significantly (P < 0001) high titer compared to the control. All mice were challenged with 10 L3 larvae of D. immitis and the results are awaited. Thus, our studies identified four potential vaccine antigens that were developed as tetravalent vaccines that are highly immunogenic. This vaccine can be further developed as a prophylactic vaccine against heartworm infection.
