Authors:
Singh OP; Stober CB; Singh AK; Blackwell JM; Sundar S
Authors notes:
PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases. 2012;6(10):e1874.1-10
Keywords:
Leishmania, Visceral leishmaniasis, Infectious disease, Cytokine, India
Abstract
There are no effective vaccines for visceral leishmaniasis (VL), a neglected parasitic disease second only to malaria in global mortality.
We previously identified 14 protective candidates in a screen of 100 Leishmania antigens as DNA vaccines in mice.
Here we employ whole blood assays to evaluate human cytokine responses to 11 of these antigens, in comparison to known defined and crude antigen preparations.
Our results are consistent with an important balance between pro-inflammatory IFNγ and TNFγ cytokine responses and anti-inflammatory IL-10 in determining outcome of VL in India, as highlighted by response to both crude and defined protein antigens.
Importantly, cured VL patients and endemic Quantiferon positive individuals recognise 5 novel vaccine candidate antigens, confirming our recent data for L. chagasi in Brazil, and their potential as cross-species vaccine candidates