Trematode proteomics: recent advances and future directions

Trematodes cause disease in millions of people worldwide, but the absence of commercial vaccines has led to an over-reliance on a handful of monotherapies to control infections. Since drug resistant fluke populations are emerging, a deeper un-derstanding of parasite biology and host interactions is required to identify new drug targets and immunogenic vaccine candi-dates. Mass spectrometry-based proteomics represents a key tool to that end. Recent studies have capitalised on the wider avail-ability of annotated helminth genomes to achieve greater coverage of trematode proteomes and discover new aspects of the host-parasite relationship. This review focusses on these latest advances, including how the protein components of fluke extra-cellular vesicles has given insight into their biogenesis and cellular interactions; and how integration of transcriptome/proteome datasets has revealed how the expression and secretion of selected families of liver fluke virulence factors, and immunomodula-tors, are regulated in accordance with parasite development and migration within the mammalian host. Additionally, we discuss the use of immunoproteomics as a tool to identify vaccine candidates associated with protective antibody responses. Finally, we highlight how established and emerging technologies, such as laser microdissection and single-cell proteomics, could be ex-ploited to resolve the protein profiles of discrete trematode tissues or cell types which, in combination with functional tools, could pin-point optimal targets for fluke control.