EN
Polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS- PAGE) of excretory/secretory products T. canis infective larvae revealed 15 protein fractions, within a molecular weight range from 19 to 200 kD. Periodic acid Schiff (PAS) staining revealed 9 glycoproteins, with molecular weight 19-55 and 130 kD. Almost all the polypeptides were recognized by infection sera from patients with toxocarosis, on Western blot analysis, indicating that all to a greater or lesser extent induce antibody responses. Specific IgM antibodies in the sera of some patients with toxocarosis were also detected by the same method. The specifity of these protein components was tested using sera of patients with trichinellosis or patients infected with Ascaris lumbricoides. Cross-reacion in sera diluted 1:50 were observed in 20% of all the patients but in sera diluted 1:100 only in 2 cases of trichinellosis (out of 25). No cross-reacions were seen with polypeptides of molecular weight lower than 39kD, which suggests that these are specific to T. canis.