Abstract
The abundance of the majority of proteins of infectious third-stage larvae (L3) of Haemonchus contortus, conditioned for arrested development, remained unaltered. Only seven proteins showed quantitative differences as observed by two-dimensionol gel electrophoresis. These differences were also observed in a laboratory strain which has lost the ability for arrested development. The abundance of two of these proteins increased dramatically during conditioning of larvae for 5–10 weeks. This coincided with the highest percentage of inhibited larvae in experimental infections. Moreover, the abundance of these proteins decreased again after prolonged conditioning (22 weeks). The abundance of the other 5 proteins was not correlated to the percentage of inhibition. We therefore conclude that these proteins are involved in the aging process of larvae. The changes in protein between free-living (L3) and parasitic stages (L4) were large and seem to reflect the large environmental changes experienced by the larvae when entering a mammalian host. Early fourth- (EL4) and late fourth- (LL4) stage larvae differed in 9 proteins. One protein was stage-specific for EL4. These results imply that only minor alterations do occur in these stages notwithstanding the large morphological differences between these larvae.
Published Version
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