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Of dogs and hookworms: man’s best friend and his parasites as a model for translational biomedical research

We present evidence that the dog hookworm (Ancylostoma caninum) is underutilised in the study of host-parasite interactions, particularly as a proxy for the human-hookworm relationship. The inability to passage hookworms through all life stages in vitro means that adult stage hookworms have to be ha...

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Autores principales: Shepherd, Catherine, Wangchuk, Phurpa, Loukas, Alex
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5785905/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29370855
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13071-018-2621-2
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author Shepherd, Catherine
Wangchuk, Phurpa
Loukas, Alex
author_facet Shepherd, Catherine
Wangchuk, Phurpa
Loukas, Alex
author_sort Shepherd, Catherine
collection PubMed
description We present evidence that the dog hookworm (Ancylostoma caninum) is underutilised in the study of host-parasite interactions, particularly as a proxy for the human-hookworm relationship. The inability to passage hookworms through all life stages in vitro means that adult stage hookworms have to be harvested from the gut of their definitive hosts for ex vivo research. This makes study of the human-hookworm interface difficult for technical and ethical reasons. The historical association of humans, dogs and hookworms presents a unique triad of positive evolutionary pressure to drive the A. caninum-canine interaction to reflect that of the human-hookworm relationship. Here we discuss A. caninum as a proxy for human hookworm infection and situate this hookworm model within the current research agenda, including the various ‘omics’ applications and the search for next generation biologics to treat a plethora of human diseases. Historically, the dog hookworm has been well described on a physiological and biochemical level, with an increasing understanding of its role as a human zoonosis. With its similarity to human hookworm, the recent publications of hookworm genomes and other omics databases, as well as the ready availability of these parasites for ex vivo culture, the dog hookworm presents itself as a valuable tool for discovery and translational research.
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spelling pubmed-57859052018-02-07 Of dogs and hookworms: man’s best friend and his parasites as a model for translational biomedical research Shepherd, Catherine Wangchuk, Phurpa Loukas, Alex Parasit Vectors Review We present evidence that the dog hookworm (Ancylostoma caninum) is underutilised in the study of host-parasite interactions, particularly as a proxy for the human-hookworm relationship. The inability to passage hookworms through all life stages in vitro means that adult stage hookworms have to be harvested from the gut of their definitive hosts for ex vivo research. This makes study of the human-hookworm interface difficult for technical and ethical reasons. The historical association of humans, dogs and hookworms presents a unique triad of positive evolutionary pressure to drive the A. caninum-canine interaction to reflect that of the human-hookworm relationship. Here we discuss A. caninum as a proxy for human hookworm infection and situate this hookworm model within the current research agenda, including the various ‘omics’ applications and the search for next generation biologics to treat a plethora of human diseases. Historically, the dog hookworm has been well described on a physiological and biochemical level, with an increasing understanding of its role as a human zoonosis. With its similarity to human hookworm, the recent publications of hookworm genomes and other omics databases, as well as the ready availability of these parasites for ex vivo culture, the dog hookworm presents itself as a valuable tool for discovery and translational research. BioMed Central 2018-01-25 /pmc/articles/PMC5785905/ /pubmed/29370855 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13071-018-2621-2 Text en © The Author(s). 2018 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Review
Shepherd, Catherine
Wangchuk, Phurpa
Loukas, Alex
Of dogs and hookworms: man’s best friend and his parasites as a model for translational biomedical research
title Of dogs and hookworms: man’s best friend and his parasites as a model for translational biomedical research
title_full Of dogs and hookworms: man’s best friend and his parasites as a model for translational biomedical research
title_fullStr Of dogs and hookworms: man’s best friend and his parasites as a model for translational biomedical research
title_full_unstemmed Of dogs and hookworms: man’s best friend and his parasites as a model for translational biomedical research
title_short Of dogs and hookworms: man’s best friend and his parasites as a model for translational biomedical research
title_sort of dogs and hookworms: man’s best friend and his parasites as a model for translational biomedical research
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5785905/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29370855
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13071-018-2621-2
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