ABSTRACT
Clonorchis sinensis was first discovered by James McConnell at the autopsy of a Chinese male in 1874. One study suggested that it was possible to establish and maintain the complete life cycle of Clonorchis sinensis in the laboratory. Excysted Clonorchis sinensis metacercariae migrate into the end of the bile ducts of their host and use the bile ducts as their nest. Clonorchiasis is rather well adapted to human hosts, and most of the light infected cases show no clinical findings. The studies on Clonorchis sinensis have developed several appropriate animal models for specific aspects of the parasite, such as host susceptibility for infection and reinfection, host immune response, diagnosis, chemotherapy, pathogenesis, and carcinogenesis. For the biliary hyperplasia, several in vitro experiments provided strong evidence that Clonorchis sinensis possessed mitogenic factors in its excretory-secretory proteins (ESPs) and exhibited different levels of cell proliferations.
