Studies on the adhesion of protoscoleces from Echinococcus multilocularis and E. granulosus to artificial substrates and human endothelial cells in vitro.

This paper describes experiments in vitro to investigate the interaction between isolated protoscoleces from Echinococcus granulosus and E. multilocularis and human endothelial cells in monolayer culture. During a maximum coculture period of 48 h neither protoscoleces nor endothelial cells showed evidence of cytotoxicity. However, protoscoleces adherent to either endothelial cells or artificial substrata developed a glycocalyx-like coat. Adherence of protoscoleces to endothelial cells requires serum (pooled human serum or foetal calf serum) in a dose-dependent fashion. However, protoscolex adhesion to artificial substrates such as glass with or without gelatin coating was markedly inhibited by serum. Thus, even 0.001% serum reduced adhesion by 46% compared with the control value. Whilst the chemical nature of the serum components have not been identified, these experiments show that serum contains both inhibitory and promoting factors for protoscolex adhesion, a finding of possible significance for the therapeutic prevention of systemic spread of established Echinococcus infections.