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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

CP12: Sheep & Goats - 10 min talks
Location: Lecture Theatre 2
Session Chair: Vern Bowles, The University of Melbourne
Session Chair: Nichola Calvani, The University of Sydney

Presentation 1

Growth and development of Fasciola hepatica on an in-vitro 3D cell culture model: how does it compare to in-vivo?

Hayley Martinez DeCristi¹, Michael Kuligowski², Katharine Muscat¹, Javier Gonzalez Miguel³, Nichola Eliza Davies Calvani¹

1: University of Sydney, Sydney School of Veterinary Science, Australia; 2: Sydney Microscopy and Microanalysis, Australia; 3: Laboratory of Helminth Parasites of Zoonotic Importance, Institute of Natural Resources and Agrobiology of Salamanca, Spain

Background and Aims

Fasciola hepatica is a globally distributed helminth of importance to both human and animal health. Critical information on how F. hepatica interacts with its mammalian host is lacking due to a reliance on animal models. This study aimed to validate a recently-developed HepG2-derived 3D spheroid co-culture model for F. hepatica newly excysted juveniles (NEJ) against in-vivo infection, using advanced microscopy methods.

Methods

In-vivo samples from C57BL/6 mice, infected with 175 metacercariae each, and NEJ grown in-vitro were collected at 12, 48, 120, 144, 168, 180, and 192 hours post infection. Comparison of the growth and development of external morphological (spines, sensory papillae, suckers) and internal anatomical (musculature, gut and uterine development) features between the two culture conditions were made using fluorescent confocal and scanning electron microscopy.

Results

The data obtained provides the first detailed morphological comparison of the growth and development of F. hepatica NEJ cultured in-vitro and in-vivo and serves as a benchmark to enhance future models.

Conclusion

The progression of animal-free models will enable exploration of the intricacies of early infection. Future work will incorporate spatial transcriptomic analysis to elucidate temporal shifts in F. hepatica development and the subsequent discovery of drug and vaccine targets.