Abstract:
Eukaryotic parasites and pathogens continue to cause some of the most detrimental
and difficult to treat diseases (or disease states) in both humans and animals, while also
continuously expanding into non-endemic countries. Combined with the ever growing
number of reports on drug-resistance and the lack of effective treatment programs
for many metazoan diseases, the impact that these organisms will have on quality
of life remain a global challenge. Vaccination as an effective prophylactic treatment
has been demonstrated for well over 200 years for bacterial and viral diseases. From
the earliest variolation procedures to the cutting edge technologies employed today,
many protective preparations have been successfully developed for use in both medical
and veterinary applications. In spite of the successes of these applications in the
discovery of subunit vaccines against prokaryotic pathogens, not many targets have
been successfully developed into vaccines directed against metazoan parasites. With
the current increase in -omics technologies and metadata for eukaryotic parasites, target
discovery for vaccine development can be expedited. However, a good understanding
of the host/vector/pathogen interface is needed to understand the underlying biological,
biochemical and immunological components that will confer a protective response in the
host animal. Therefore, systems biology is rapidly coming of age in the pursuit of effective
parasite vaccines. Despite the difficulties, a number of approaches have been developed
and applied to parasitic helminths and arthropods. This review will focus on key aspects
of vaccine development that require attention in the battle against these metazoan
parasites, as well as successes in the field of vaccine development for helminthiases
and ectoparasites. Lastly, we propose future direction of applying successes in pursuit
of next generation vaccines.
