الفهرس | Only 14 pages are availabe for public view |
Abstract Introduction : Schistosomiasis is a chronic illness which is still ongoing to threaten millions of human, mainly the rural poor in the developing countries. Individuals born and raised in endemic areas of Schistosoma mansoni infection only present with the intestinal form of chronic illness. In contrast, travelers or recent immigrants to endemic area, when get infected, they develop acute severe illness. Aim of the work: elucidate the impact of prenatal exposure of neonates to Schistosoma mansoni antigens and antibodies when re-exposed to challenge infection on: 1. The classical Schistosoma mansoni morbidity indices. 2. The ultra-microscopic tegumental structures of the recovered Schistosoma mansoni worms. Methods: morbidity assessment and electron microscopic scanningin to mice born to infected mother and suckled by their own mothers to test the transplacental and transmammary immune transmission (group A), born to infected mothers and suckled by non-infected dams to test transplacental immune transmission only (group B), born to non-infected mothers and suckled by infected dams to test the transmammary transmission only(group C). Results: the tranplacental transmitted immune bodies alone caused severe sensitization while postnatal breast feeding with included transmammary transmitted antibodies caused a state of hyporesponsiveness characterized by marked amelioration in the morbidity markers. Lastly, the combined exposure resulted in a state of immune hyporesponsiveness with very marked reduction in morbidity indices. Conclusion: congenital exposure to Schistosoma mansoni immune bodies favoured aggravated immunopathology on post-natal re-exposureto infection. However, when this congenital exposure to the immune bodies was immediately followed by breast feeding, the state of sensitization got transformed into a state of hyporesponsiveness and tolerance in which the chronic hepatic pathology became controlled. |