SYNTHESIS AND BIOACTIVITIES OF MULTIPLE ANTIGENIC PEPTIDE VACCINES CONTAINING TWO DIFFERENT SCHISTOSOMAL ANTIGENIC PEPTIDES

AIM: To synthesize the multiple antigenic peptide (MAP) vaccines consisting of two different schistosomal antigenic peptides, 26 43(AAGVDYEDERISFQDWPK,P 26 ) and 141 153(ESLKGSTGKLAVG,P 141 ) derived from Sm28GST and 187 202(PQIDKYLKSSKYIAWP, J 187 ) derived from Sj26GST, and to examine their antigenicities, immunogenicities and protective effects on experimental animals. METHODS: The multiple antigenic peptide vaccines consisting of two different antigenic peptides have been synthesized using both Boc and Fmoc chemistry and their antigenicities have been tested with dot ELISA. Mice were bled to test antibody responses after vaccination with the synthetic MAPs, and were infected with Schistosoma japonicum cercariae. Six weeks after infection, the mice were killed to recover the adult worms and the eggs in liver. RESULTS: The synthetic MAPs could be bound to a certain extent by both patient and infected rabbit sera, and were able to elicit antibody responses specific to natural antigen of Schistosoma japonicum . Furthermore, immunization with (P 26 ) 2(J 187 ) 2 MAP, (P 26 ) 2(P 141 ) 2 MAP and (P 26 ) 4(P 141 ) 4 MAP in Kunming mice reduced, respectively, the worm burden by 40 1%, 61 1% and 34 4%, and reduced the liver eggs by 48 4%, 67 1% and 47 4%. CONCLUSION: More effective vaccines against schistosomiasis may be obtained by combination of suitable antigenic peptides into a MAP molecule.