Roadmap for the development of candidate vaccines for liver fluke

What are we trying to achieve and why? What is the problem we are trying to solve?

Development of an affordable stable expression system for large-scale production of the recombinant proteins/glycoproteins.

What are the scientific and technological challenges (knowledge gaps needing to be addressed)?

• That the expressed antigens have the correct conformation and glycosylation
• Generation of stable genetically modified organisms allowing largescale production

What approaches could/should be taken to address the research question?

• Various cell line expression systems – bacteria; parasite or plant cell lines
• Collaboration with commercial entities who have proprietary expression systems
• Certain plant protein expression systems are capable of mimicing helminth protein glycosylation systems

What else needs to be done before we can solve this need?

• Identity of the protective antigens
• Collaboration between groups expert in a variety of expression systems
• Detailed knowledge of the importance of parasite glycans in host-parasite responses

Existing knowledge including successes and failures

Quill A has been used in a number of the vaccine trials in which efficacy has been demonstrated