A comparison of the protein constituents of the major body compartments of the dog roundworm, Toxocara canis.

An analysis of the protein profiles of intact worms and isolated tissues of adult male and female Toxocara canis worms was conducted. Soluble proteins recovered from homogenized whole specimens and dissected tissues (body wall, reproductive tract, esophagus and intestine) of T. canis adults from several different canine hosts were separated by size using gradient sodium dodecyl sulfate electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) and visualized with silver staining. SDS-PAGE profiles of worms from different hosts were found to be virtually identical irrespective of sex or tissue type. Recovered proteins ranged in size from 3.4 to 325kDa. As expected, variations existed between the protein profiles of different body tissues, with only slight variations between the sexes. The largest number of recovered proteins was present in the female reproductive tract extracts.