Novel approaches for the establishment of non-invasive therapy tools of alveolar echinococcosis

我们建立了一种新的实验工具，用于在大鼠肝脏植入泡状棘球绦虫病(AE)病变。这种建立实验性肝脏AE病变的动物模型使我们能够引入新的方法来评估非侵入性工具，如热疗和光动力疗法，以及传统的有创的、外科手术切除的肝脏AE病变。由于AE感染是慢性的，我们一直在使用这个新的动物模型系统进行初步的实验工作，并通过计算机断层扫描(CT)分析肝脏病变的大小以及对粗抗原和重组Em18抗原的抗体反应。后者有望通过国际合作项目，包括德国世卫组织包虫病非正式工作组协调员和法国世卫组织临床包虫病合作中心，对监测AE的进展非常有用。对粗制抗原的抗体反应比对rEm18的抗体反应快得多。提示Em18的免疫生物学特性。从人类AE病例中，我们发现即使在手术治疗期间，对rEm18的抗体应答也会立即下降。因此，建立大鼠实验性肝AE病变的新系统有望成为比较研究粗抗原和rEm18抗原的抗体应答、非侵入性和侵入性治疗后的免疫病理信息的有用工具。这一新的动物模型可能为动物模型和人类病例中AE感染的免疫生物学研究开辟新的途径。

We have established a novel experimental tool to implant alveolar echinococcosis (AE) lesion in the liver of rats. This animal model to establish experimental hepatic AE lesion enables us to introduce new approaches for evaluation of non-invasive tools such as hyperthermia and photodynamic therapy, and traditional invasive, surgical resection of the hepatic AE lesion. As AE infection is chronic, we have been doing a preliminary experimental work using this new animal model system and analyzing the size of the hepatic lesion by computed tomography (CT) and antibody responses to both crude antigens and recombinant Em18 antigen. The latter has been expected to be highly useful for monitoring of progression of AE through international collaboration projects including the coordinator of the WHO informal working group of echinococcosis in Germany, and WHO collaboration center for clinical echinococcosis in France. Antibody responses to crude antigens became positive much faster than those to rEm18. It may suggest immunobiological characteristics of Em18. From human AE cases, we have found that antibody responses to rEm18 immediately decrease even during the surgical treatment. Therefore, the new system to establish experimental hepatic AE lesion in rats is highly expected to become useful tools for comparative studies of antibody responses to both crude and rEm18 antigens, immunopathologic information after non-invasive and invasive treatments. This novel animal model may open a novel study of immunobiology in AE infections in the animal models and human cases.