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Conference Agenda

Overview and details of the sessions of this conference. Please select a date or location to show only sessions at that day or location. Please select a single session for detailed view (with abstracts and downloads if available).

Daily Overview

Session

CP16: Horses & Cows - 10 min talks
Location: Lecture Theatre 2
Session Chair: Abdul Jabbar, The University of Melbourne
Session Chair: Narelle Dybing, Murdoch University

Presentation 2

Exploration of equine saliva proteins as a source of immune biomarkers that may reflect the mucosal response to a gastrointestinal worm infection.

Tanya King¹, Samantha Emery-Corbin², Habtamu Derseh¹, Rob Bischof¹, Sarah Preston¹

1: Federation University, Australia; 2: Monash Proteomics and Metabolomics Platform, BDI, Monash University, Clayton, Australia

Cyathostomin infections caused by small strongyle worms are among the most prevalent and clinically significant parasitic diseases affecting horses worldwide. Although considerable research has focused on identifying host–parasite interaction markers in serum and faecal samples, the salivary proteome remains largely unexplored. Saliva represents a non-invasive biofluid that may enable monitoring of infection status and immune responses, while providing access to both host and parasite derived proteins.

In this study, the salivary proteome of four naturally infected horses was analysed at two timepoints using mass spectrometry. Two preparation approaches were evaluated to determine the feasibility of saliva for parasite protein detection: direct digestion of neat saliva using S-Trap protocol, and on-bead enrichment method employing hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography (HILIC) beads to concentrate polar and extracellular vesicle-associated proteins. Samples were analysed by data-independent acquisition (DIA) on an Orbitrap Astral mass spectrometer, searched in Spectronaut using DirectDIA, and analysed in the DIA Analyst platform.

Across all samples, 2,535 proteins (2,448 groups) were identified. Among these, 34 Cylicocyclus nassatus proteins were detected with more than one unique peptide, including 28 proteins with no detectable homology to the host proteome. These findings demonstrate the potential of equine saliva for detecting parasite and host immune proteins.