Purification of Schistosoma Mansoni Egg Antigens: Theory and Practice

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Abstract
With the current burgeoning of interest in the immunology of parasitic disease, parasite immunochemistry is finally beginning to come of age. In the 1960s immunochemical research was primarily concerned with identifying serological antigens. Methods such as immunodiffusion and immunoelectrophoresis found acceptance among those interested in schistosomiasis and application to that parasitic infection. In the late 1970s emphasis has fallen on the purification of parasite antigens with special emphasis on their characterization and biological properties. Considerable progress on fractionating protozoal antigens has been made, culminating in the elegant studies of Cross et al. characterizing the molecular structure of the trypanosome surface coat antigens. In non-protozoal helminth systems, studies of Echinococcus granulosus have identified the immunodominant antigens which have proven useful in the serodiagnosis of human disease. However, research on the major helminth pathogen of man, Schistosoma, has neither equalled the molecular elegance of trypanosome work nor achieved the practical consequences of Echinococcus immunochemistry.

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