Protein profiles of five avian Eimeria species.

SDS-PAGE fingerprint studies of oocyst antigens of five major Eimeria species including E. acervulina, E. maxima, E. necatrix, E. praecox and E. tenella demonstrated that their protein patterns are different, but there are some shared proteins between species and at least one protein band (45 kDa) was conserved among the five species. In Western blot studies, some species-specific as well as a few shared immunogenic bands were identified and chicken anti-E.maxima sera reacted with the conserved protein band in oocyst antigens of all these species.