Therapeutic and protective effect of rEmP29 against secondary AE infection in BALB/c mice.

<p><b>(A)</b> Assessment of parasite load in the intraperitoneal cavity of mice vaccinated i.p. with rEmP29-saponin, rNcMIC1-saponin or adjuvant alone and subsequently infected with <i>E</i>. <i>multilocularis</i> vesicle suspension. Mice were vaccinated three times (2 weeks apart), and at 3 months p.i. mice were euthanized and the total parasite mass recovered and weighed. <b>(B)</b> Assessment of parasite load in post-infection treated mice with rEmP29-saponin, rNcMIC1-saponin or adjuvant alone. Treatment started at 1 month after initial secondary infection. Shapiro-Wilk test suggested that the measured cyst weights followed normal distribution in all mouse groups. One-way ANOVA analysis proved a significant difference between the animal groups from experiment no. 2 (immunization before infection (A). Post-Hoc analysis by Pairwise T-Test with Bonferroni-adjustment showed that there was a significant reduction of the median parasite weight in rEmP29-Sap immunized group (A). For experiment no. 3 (B), significance was found only between rEmP29-Sap- and rNcMIC1-Sap-treated groups.