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The objective of this cooperative research project is to produce Trichuris suis excretory/secretory products for the development of serological assays to detect T. vulpis infection in dogs and T. suis infection in human subjects.
Approach: Weaner pigs will be orally inoculated with T. suis eggs. At 42 days post-inoculation, pigs will be euthanized and adult worms will be collected from the cecum and colon. Worms will be washed and placed in culture for 5 days, and excretory/secretory products will be collected, concentrated and filtered. Low pressure liquid chromatography will be used to purify the Trichuris diagnostic antigen previously identified by Hill et al., 1997. The purified antigen will be re-concentrated and stored frozen until used by the cooperator to develop the ELISA. The developed ELISA test will be provided to ARS to investigate human exposure to T. suis in patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) involved in clinical trials to test the effect of T. suis egg exposure on disease symptoms.