Research Article Protection against Amoebic Liver Abscess in Hamster by Intramuscular Immunization with an Autographa californica Baculovirus Driving the Expression of the Gal-Lectin LC3 Fragment

Copyright © 2015 Dulce Maŕıa Meneses-Ruiz et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. In a previous study, we demonstrated that oral immunization using Autographa californica baculovirus driving the expression of the Gal-lectin LC3 fragment (AcNPV-LC3) of Entamoeba histolytica conferred protection against ALA development in hamsters. In this study, we determined the ability of AcNPV-LC3 to protect against ALA by the intramuscular route as well as the liver immune response associated with protection. Results showed that 55 % of hamsters IM immunized with AcNPV-LC3 showed sterile protection against ALA, whereas other 20 % showed reduction in the size and extent of abscesses, resulting in some protection in 75 % of animals compared to the sham control group. Levels of protection showed a linear correlation with the development and intensity of specific antiamoeba cellular and humoral responses, evaluated in serum and spleen of hamsters, respectively. Evaluation of theTh1/Th2 cytokine patterns expressed in the liver of hamsters showed that sterile protectionwas associatedwith the production of high levels of IF