Figure 1.

Western blot analyses of three species of schistosomes. Parasite extracts of Schistosoma mansoni (Sm), S. japonicum (Sj) and S. hematobium (Sh) were separated via polyacrylaimde gel electrophoresis and resultant immunoblots were probed with (first panel) rabbit polyclonal antibody raised by using peptide of S. mansoni calpain (position 737–758); (second panel) mouse sera obtained from animals vaccinated with Sm-p80; (third panel) sera from baboons immunized with Sm-p80. S. hematobium calpain (Sh-p80) has 95% and S. japonicum calpain (Sj-p80) 85% sequence homology with S. mansoni calpain (Sm-p80). This preliminary study indicates that immunogenic epitopes of Sm-p80 which may play a role in vaccinemediated protection may be conserved in the three species of schistosomes. Thus Smp80 based vaccine formulation may have potential for cross-species protection.