Schistosome infections induce significant changes in the host biliary proteome

Schistosomiasis is a disease caused by blood trematodes affecting man and animals that represents an important human health and veterinary problem. Main damages caused by this infection are a consequence of the host inflammatory reaction against the parasite eggs trapped inside the liver. Despite that the hepatic pathology of schistosomiasis is very well known, there are no specific studies dealing with the schistosome infection effects on the biliary function. The purpose of this work was to analyse the changes induced by Schistosoma bovis infection in the biliary proteome. For this, whole gallbladders from S. bovis-infected and non-infected mice were dissected, homogenized and fractionated by differential centrifugation. The resulting protein fractions were resolved by SDS-PAGE, the gels were sliced, and the gel pieces analysed by LC-MS/MS. Altogether, we identified 1937 proteins, which were classified according to their "protein class" and "molecular function", and then subjected to an "Enrichment analysis". The differences found in gallbladder proteomes between S. bovis-infected and non-infected mice are analysed. We show that chronic schistosome infections cause significant changes in the biliary proteome that may produce physiological alterations and affect the therapeutic actions of drugs when administered to human patients and animals with schistosomiasis.

To identify the changes induced by the schistosome infection in bile protein composition, and therefore in bile function, we compared the proteome of the gallbladders collected from non-infected healthy mice and from mice infected with S. bovis during 4months. For this, gallbladders from both groups of mice were homogenized and these homogenates were fractionated by serial centrifugation and acrylamide gel electrophoresis. The proteins were in gel digested and analysed by LC-MS/MS for identification. The present work reports the first data on the proteome of the mouse gallbladder and provides a comprehensive catalogue of biliary proteins that may be of great use in other studies addressing biliary physiology and pathology. We observed that there were significant differences in the biliary proteome of mice infected and non-infected with S. bovis and that chronic schistosome infections may produce important physiological alterations in the bile function.