An integrated immunoproteomics and bioinformatics approach for the analysis of Schistosoma japonicum tegument proteins.

Unlabelled: Schistosomiasis remains one of the major neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) causing morbidity of humans residing in the tropical countries. Much effort has been devoted to the development of vaccines, since it is recognized that vaccines can be served as an important supplementary component alongside chemotherapy for the future control and elimination of schistosomiasis. To accelerate digging new potential target antigens, it is essential to extensively and intensively search immunogenic proteins in a high-throughput manner using proteomics-microarray techniques. In the present study, an integrated immunoproteomics and bioinformatics approach was used to profile the tegument of the human blood fluke Schistosoma japonicum. Results showed that the full-length tegument proteins were high-throughput cloned and expressed and screened with sera from S. japonicum-infected patients and normal subjects using protein arrays. Here, thirty highly immunoreactive tegument proteins and 10 antigens with an AUC value greater than 0.90 were identified at first time. In particularly, STIP1, the highest immunoreactive tegument protein has been shown good antigenicity and immunogenicity, and thus makes it to be a potential target for designing anti-parasite drug or vaccine.

Biological Significance: The schistosome tegument plays a crucial role in host-parasite interactions and there are several tegument proteins that proved to be potential vaccine candidates. However, vaccines are not yet available, thus it is important to identify new target antigens from schistosome tegument proteome. Herein, we demonstrate that the S. japonicum tegument proteins were analyzed by an integrated immunoproteomics and bioinformatics approach. We found that thirty highly immunoreactive tegument proteins and 10 antigens with an AUC value greater than 0.90 were identified for the first time. In particularly, we found 17 of tegument immunoproteomes having putative interaction networks with other proteins of S. japonicum. The results will provide clues of potential target molecules for vaccine development and biomarkers for diagnostics of schistosomiasis.