Cercarial Penetration Studies. Steps toward Chemoprophylaxis in Schistosomiasis.
Abstract
The scope of this research centers on elucidating the biochemical mechanisms involved in cercarial (Schistosoma mansoni) skin penetration and the evaluation of eicosanoid inhibitors as possible prophylactic agents. The most significant findings to date are: 1) Cercarial eicosanoid production is pH dependent. 2) Esculetin was effective in vitro at inhibiting cercarial penetration of an agar: gelatin substrate. However, the drug was not effective in vivo, probably due to its short serum half-life. 3) We have tentatively indentified cercarial LTB4 (or metabolites) production as a correlate of cercarial penetration. 4) After examining various in vitro methods used to transform cercariae into schistosomules, we could find no significant correlations between ultrastructural and loss of water tolerance or eicosanoid production. This is particularly significant since ultrastructural changes have been the predominate method used to evaluate transformation methods. 5) Cercariae more readily penetrate the skin of SENCAR mice, a strain with reportly high skin lipoxygenase products, than they do the skin of either ICR or NMRI strains. This provides indirect evidence of the importance of lipoxygenase products in cercarial penetration. Keywords: Lipoxygenase, Cyclo-oxygenase, Linoleate, Chemoprophylaxis, Esculetin, Ibuprofen, Ketoconazole, Caffeic acid.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Oct 15, 1986
- Accession Number
- ADA182487
Entities
People
- A. C. Fusco
- B. Salafsky
Organizations
- University of Illinois College of Medicine