Cross protection between a laboratory passaged Chinese strain of Schistosoma japonicum and field isolates of S. japonicum from China

Abstract

Our laboratory strain of Schistosoma japonicum has been isolated for 51 years, but is comparable to the indigenous Chinese parasite in terms of its infectivity to both the intermediate and definitive hosts. Vaccination with our strain protects mice against challenge with wild isolates of S. japonicum from China. Thus any defined antigen vaccine developed using our laboratory strain would be expected to protect against S. japonicum in the field in China.