Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2026

DOI

10.1007/s12639-026-02001-7

Publication Title

Journal of Parasitic Diseases

Volume

Advance online publication

Pages

10 pp.

Abstract

Schistosomiasis is a disease of poverty that is highly prevalent in Sub-Saharan African countries. Cross-reacting proteins in Schistosoma mansoni (Sm) and S. haematobium (Sh) have been reported to pose diagnostic challenges. Proteins from these two parasites may help overcome diagnostic limitations caused by cross-reactivity and poor species discrimination in serological assays. The study aims to identify cross-reacting protein markers from S. mansoni and S. haematobium for possible concurrent diagnosis of the two parasites. High-quality protein extracts were prepared from the eggs (soluble egg antigen, SEA) and adult worms (Schistosoma worm antigens preparation, SWAP) of S. haematobium and S. mansoni. The diagnostic performance of the proteins was evaluated using a quantitative ELISA method with sera obtained from S. mansoni-infected mice. The immunoreactive proteins in the helminths were identified by conventional Western blot analyses and the specific protein markers for concurrent diagnosis of the two parasites were confirmed by double-binding Western blot analyses. SmSEA gave the best diagnostic performance (Sensitivity (SS) = 1.00, Specificity (SP) = 0.96, AUC = 0.96). ShSEA performed slightly better in diagnosing S. mansoni infection (SS = 0.96, SP = 0.87, AUC = 0.95) compared to SmSWAP (SS = 0.91, SP = 0.95, AUC = 0.93). Diagnostic protein markers of size 100 kDa in ShSWAP, > 250 kDa (ShSEA), and 25–37 kDa (SmSWAP) were specific for the two parasites. Shared antigenic markers support potential dual-species diagnosis, but validation using sera from S. haematobium-infected hosts is still required.

Rights

© 2026 The Authors

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as 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 images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. 

Data Availability

Article states: "All data from the study have been presented in the manuscript."

Original Publication Citation

Oyeyemi, O. T., & Shollenberger, L. M. (2026). Leveraging cross-reactivity for dual serological detection of closely related Schistosoma species. Journal of Parasitic Diseases. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12639-026-02001-7

ORCID

0000-0002-0943-0838 (Shollenberger)

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