MR (Mijke) Sweers MSc

Research:

Wise with Worms:

Developing vaccines against gastrointestinal nematodes and liver fluke in cattle.

Parasitic helminths pose a major threat to the livestock sector, as infections severely impact animal health and productivity. Currently, the control of helminths relies heavily on the application of anthelmintic drugs (AHDs), but cases of drug-resistant helminths are increasing. This rising resistance, combined with the environmental burden of AHD-use, increases the need for alternative control measures. Though multiple strategies contribute to reducing helminth disease burden, the application of vaccines is often mentioned as an essential element in helminth control. Among the most prevalent and economically significant parasitic helminths of cattle, a commercial vaccine is only available against lungworm. My research therefore focuses on developing vaccines against gastrointestinal nematodes Ostertagia ostertagi and Cooperia oncophora and the liver fluke Fasciola hepatica.

For gastrointestinal nematodes, vaccines produced in our glyco-engineered Nicotiana benthamiana expression system induced promising levels of protection in preclinical trials. The sugar motives (glycans) present on the vaccine were shown to play an essential role in eliciting a protective immune response in immunisation-challenge studies. Within my project, we aim to further solidify the commercial potential of these vaccines by optimizing and scaling-up production in N. benthamiana and performing large scale vaccination trials at farms in the Netherlands.

For liver fluke vaccine development, the primary challenge is establishing a vaccine candidate that induces a protective and consistent immune response. The impact of glycosylation on the immune response to liver fluke vaccines is currently uncharted territory and may be a contributing factor to the absence of successful vaccines thus far. The N. benthamiana expression system developed by our lab has shown great versatility regarding glyco-engineering and thereby paves the way for production of liver fluke vaccine candidates with diverse glycan structures. Therefore, we aim to apply our knowledge on glycosylation and glyco-engineering to investigate the effect of glycosylation F. hepatica vaccine efficacy.