ABSTRACT
Some landmark immunological concepts of amebiasis were painstakingly carved out, but it was not until L. S. Diamond’s axenic cultivation of Entamoeba histolytica and the subsequent isolation of reliable amebic antigens, that amebiasis joined the mainstream of modern immunology. Intestinal reinfection and disease with Entamoeba histolytica occurs readily in the presence of circulating humoral antibodies and cell mediated immune phenomena acquired in the course of past exposures to this parasite. Reinfection with Entamoeba histolytica in experimental animals can be prevented by the immunity established through a previous exposure to the parasite or by injection of several forms of antigenic material. Sub-human primates appear to be spontaneously susceptible to infection with E. histolytica, but it would be prohibitively expensive to perform the appropriate experiments with such animals. The gerbil (Meriones unguiculatus) may eventually fill this experimental gap, as it mimics human disease more accurately than the other rodents employed.
