Zeitschrift für klinische und zelluläre Immunologie
Offener Zugang
ISSN: 2155-9899
ISSN: 2155-9899
Asal Katebi, Farhad Riazi-rad, Soheila Ajdary
Background: Leishmaniasis is a vector-borne disease affecting 12 million people in the world. Because of the high prevalence of this disease and also problems related to the control and therapy of leishmaniasis, the development of effective and applicable therapeutic approaches in the treatment of leishmaniasis seems to be essential. In recent years, therapeutic vaccines have been considered promising approaches against leishmaniasis. So, we examined the therapeutic efficacy of Soluble Leishmania antigen (SLA) in combination with TLR agonists (R848 and Pam3CSK4) as adjuvants using the BALB/c mice model.
Methods: To develop a new therapeutic vaccine for leishmaniasis, SLA and/or Pam3CSK4 and/or R848 were injected one week after infection three times. One week after infection, footpad swelling was monitored weekly. Parasite burden was also assessed by serial dilution 11 weeks post-infection. Before and after vaccination, blood samples were collected, and humoral responses were evaluated using an ELISA assay. Cytokines and NO production were analyzed 11 weeks post-infection in all groups.
Results: Immunological analysis showed that mice treated with SLA-R848-Pam3CSK4, able to control cutaneous leishmaniasis disease and subsequently the smallest lesion size, decreased parasite load, increased IgG2a, IgG2a/ IgG1, IFN-γ, and NO production.
Conclusion: The results revealed the effectiveness of SLA-R848-Pam3CSK4 modulation as a therapeutic vaccine in infected-BALB/c mice against Leishmania major infection.