title: Immunity and immune modulation elicited by the larval cestode Mesocestoides vogae and its products.
abstract: Larval cestodes (metacestodes) induce long-lasting infections leading to considerable pathology in humans and livestock. Their survival is typically associated with Th2-biased immune responses and immunosuppressive effects and depends on the parasite's ability to excrete/secrete antigens with immunoregulatory properties. Here, Mesocestoides vogae, a natural parasite of mice, is proposed as a new model species for the identification and characterization of cestode-derived immunomodulatory factors. We followed the kinetics of immune parameters after infection with M. vogae or exposure to their excretory/secretory (ES) products in a permissive strain of mice. Besides, a dominant IL-10 production and accumulation of macrophages and eosinophils expressing mRNA for Fizz-1, YM1 and Arg-1, mice showed minimal IFN-γ and transient IL-4 production at early time points with a complete loss at later stages of infection. We found that serum-free ES products without host contamination directly induced M2 macrophages and suppressed IFN-γ production in vivo and in vitro. This study highlights the use of the M. vogae as a cestode infection model and its ES products as a valuable tool for the identification of new therapeutic targets for the control of larval cestodiasis.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Parasitology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, Košice, Slovak Republic.
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Vendelova
authors.affiliation: Institute of Virology and Immunobiology, University of Wuerzburg, Wuerzburg, Germany.
authors.forename: M B
authors.initials: MB
authors.lastname: Lutz
authors.affiliation: Institute of Parasitology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, Košice, Slovak Republic.
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Hrčková
keywords: 
  Mesocestoides
  ; cestodes; excretory-secretory products; immune response; infection