ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Vet. Sci.
Sec. Parasitology
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fvets.2025.1646155
A comparative Parasitological, Histopathological, and Proteomic analysis of Schistosoma mansoni infected Mice treated with Ivermectin and Praziquantel
Provisionally accepted
Eman Sayed El-Wakil1*
Mona Mohamed Tolba2Mona Hasan El Sayad2Maha Khairy Hassen3Hayat S. Al-Rashidi4Mina A. Almayouf4Wafa Abdullah I. Al-Megrin5Hind Alzaylaee5Esraa Abdelhamid Moneer3- 1Theodor Bilharz Research Institute, Giza, Egypt
- 2Medical Research Institute, Alexandria University, Alexandria, Egypt
- 3Pharos University in Alexandria, Alexandria, Egypt
- 4Qassim University, Buraydah, Saudi Arabia
- 5Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
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This study was designed to compare the effectiveness of ivermectin (IVM) with praziquantel (PZQ) in treating Schistosoma mansoni-infected mice through biological and proteomic analysis.Detecting protein structure changes in the worms after treatment could help pursue drug efficacy in schistosomiasis. Sixty Swiss albino mice were infected with S. mansoni cercariae and were divided into three major groups (Infected untreated control, praziquantel-treated, and ivermectintreated). The evaluation of treatment was performed by parasitological, histopathological analysis, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and proteomic analysis of the worms through lysis and protein extraction, SDS-PAGE, Mass Spectrometry, and data analysis. The treated groups significantly reduced mean worm load and ova count with smaller granulomas compared to the infected control group. In adult worms treated with PZQ and IVM, severe tegumental destruction, peeling, erosion, ulceration, and suckers damage were detected by SEM. The proteomic study identified 19 protein bands, 12 commonly shared proteins between all studied groups, and seven differential protein bands. Molecular and biological function administered from the NCBInr database revealed the presence of glycolytic proteins, structural proteins, and cytosol stress response. Although praziquantel outperformed ivermectin, the anti-schistosomal properties of ivermectin are encouraging, evidenced by changes in the protein structure of the worms detected after ivermectin treatment. This may open the way to use ivermectin in combination with other anti-schistosomal medicines to avoid any potential resistance from monotherapy. Besides, it highlights the role of proteomic analysis in differential protein identification that could help efficiently treat schistosomiasis.
Keywords: Ivermectin, Praziquantel, Proteomic analysis, scanning electron microscope, Schistosoma mansoni
Received: 12 Jun 2025; Accepted: 07 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 El-Wakil, Tolba, El Sayad, Khairy Hassen, Al-Rashidi, Almayouf, Al-Megrin, Alzaylaee and Moneer. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Eman Sayed El-Wakil, Theodor Bilharz Research Institute, Giza, Egypt
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