Proteases in the schistosome life cycle: a paradigm for tumour metastasis

Cancers and parasites have a number of properties in common, particularly those that relate to their respective capacities to evade host defence mechanisms. This review highlights the similarities between metastatic tumours and schistosomes in particular, and describes the role that proteases may have in the migration, growth, survival and transmission of the different stages of the schistosome life-cycle in the vertebrate host. An elastase-like serine protease of schistosome larvae has been particularly well characterized, and its substrate profile and other properties are indicative of a role in facilitating migration of the parasite through skin tissue early after infection. The primary structures of a cathepsin B-like enzyme, and a putative 'haemoglobinase' found in adult worms have also recently been derived, these enzymes being responsible for degradation of haemoglobin in erythrocytes upon which the adults feed. Adult schistosome worms reside and produce eggs intravascularly, and the processes that mediate the extravasation and subsequent migration of the egg through host tissue are dependent on both blood platelets and the immune response. Fibrino(geno)lytic enzymatic activity that is present in the egg could modulate the thrombogenic potential that eggs might have as a result of their capacity to cause platelet aggregation in vitro and in vivo. The roles of other proteases and peptidases that have been found in schistosome larvae, worms and eggs are less clear. Some of these enzymes may modulate immunological and haemostatic defence mechanisms and thus prolong survival of the parasite, and the consequences of the interactions between schistosomes and host protease inhibitors could also be immune modulatory.