Echinococcus species

Bowles, J. and McManus, D.P. (1993a) Rapid discrimination of Echinococcus species and strains using a polymerase chain reaction-based RFLP method. Molecular and Biochemical Parasitology 57, 231-240. 

Verster, A.J.M. (1965) Review of Echinococcus species in South Africa. Onderstepoort Journal of Veterinary Research and Animal Industry 32, 7-118. 

Xiao, N., Qiu, J., Nakao, M., Nakaya, K., Yamasaki, H., Sako, Y., Mamuti, W., Schantz, P.M., Craig, P.S. and Ito, A. (2003) Short report identification of Echinococcus species from a yak in the Qinghai-Tibet plateau region of China. American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 69, 445 46. 

In Echinococcus species, numerous small (typically di- and trinucleotide) repeats occur, in short tandem tracts as well as scattered throughout the ITS1 (van Herwerden et al., 2000). These sequences therefore exhibit simplicity and cryptic simplicity. Variant sequences... 

Fig. 4.7. Phylogenetic tree of most available ITS1 sequences from Echinococcus species. Minimum evolution tree found in MEGAv3 as described in the text. Identical Greek letters indicate sequences of cloned PCR products from the same isolate, a and p - Lavikainen et al. (2003) y- Kedra et al. (1999) 8 - van Herwerden et al. (2000) e - Bowles et al. (1995).

Vaccines to assist with control of taeniid cestode infections would be most easily applied in the parasites definitive hosts because generally these are fewer in number and more readily accessed than are the intermediate hosts. However, there is little evidence of host-protective immune responses against Taenia and Echinococcus species in their definitive hosts and attempts to induce protective immune responses have been unreliable... 

The remarkable success that has been achieved with identification of protective, recombinant antigens against the Taenia and Echinococcus species has been in stark contrast to the general lack of success that has been achieved with vaccine development against other parasitic helminth infections (Dalton and Mulcahy, 2001). Hence, very little direction has been available from the experiences of others on how to translate a laboratory success with an anti-parasite vaccine into a practical (commercial) vaccine. First principles would suggest a host of issues that require investigation/opti-mization, for example ... 

Cultivation of Echinococcus species in vitro. In The biology o/Echinococcus and hydatid disease, ed. R. C. A. Thompson, pp. 143— 63. George Allen Unwin London. 

Humans are one of several intermediate hosts for larval forms q/" Echinococcus species that cause cystic (E. granulosus) and alveolar" (E. multilocularis and E. vogeli) hydatid disease. Parasite eggs from canine stools are a major source in associated livestock (e.g., sheep and goats). 

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