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Agallou M, Margaroni M, Karagouni E. Intramuscular Immunization with a Liposomal Multi-Epitope Chimeric Protein Induces Strong Cellular Immune Responses against Visceral Leishmaniasis. Vaccines (Basel) 2023; 11:1384. [PMID: 37631952 PMCID: PMC10459177 DOI: 10.3390/vaccines11081384] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/26/2023] [Revised: 08/01/2023] [Accepted: 08/16/2023] [Indexed: 08/29/2023] Open
Abstract
Control of the intracellular parasite Leishmania (L.) requires the activation of strong type 1 cellular immune responses. Towards this goal, in the present study, a multiepitope chimeric protein named LiChimera was encapsulated into cationic liposomes and its protective efficacy against experimental visceral leishmaniasis was investigated. Liposomal LiChimera conferred significant protection against L. infantum as evidenced by the significantly reduced parasite loads in the spleen and liver. Protection detected in Lipo:LiChimera-immunized mice was dependent on the differentiation of long-lasting cellular immune responses and particularly the induction of antigen-specific multifunctional memory CD4+ TH1 and CD8+ T cells that persisted during infection, as evidenced by the persistent high production of IFN-γ and IL-2 and proliferation activity. Notably, protected mice were also characterized by significantly low numbers of non-regulatory CD4+ T cells able to co-produce IFN-γ and IL-10, an important population for disease establishment, as compared to non-immunized control group. Collectively, these results demonstrate that cationic liposomes containing LiChimera can be considered an effective candidate vaccine against visceral leishmaniasis.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | - Evdokia Karagouni
- Immunology of Infection Group, Department of Microbiology, Hellenic Pasteur Institute, 115 21 Athens, Greece; (M.A.); (M.M.)
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Mahor H, Mukherjee A, Sarkar A, Saha B. Anti-leishmanial therapy: Caught between drugs and immune targets. Exp Parasitol 2023; 245:108441. [PMID: 36572088 DOI: 10.1016/j.exppara.2022.108441] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/11/2022] [Revised: 08/12/2022] [Accepted: 12/01/2022] [Indexed: 12/24/2022]
Abstract
Leishmaniasis is an enigmatic disease that has very restricted options for chemotherapy and none for prophylaxis. As a result, deriving therapeutic principles for curing the disease has been a major objective in Leishmania research for a long time. Leishmania is a protozoan parasite that lives within macrophages by subverting or switching cell signaling to the pathways that ensure its intracellular survival. Therefore, three groups of molecules aimed at blocking or eliminating the parasite, at least, in principle, include blockers of macrophage receptor- Leishmania ligand interaction, macrophage-activating small molecules, peptides and cytokines, and signaling inhibitors or activators. Macrophages also act as an antigen-presenting cell, presenting antigen to the antigen-specific T cells to induce activation and differentiation of the effector T cell subsets that either execute or suppress anti-leishmanial functions. Three groups of therapeutic principles targeting this sphere of Leishmania-macrophage interaction include antibodies that block pro-leishmanial response of T cells, ligands that activate anti-leishmanial T cells and the antigens for therapeutic vaccines. Besides these, prophylactic vaccines have been in clinical trials but none has succeeded so far. Herein, we have attempted to encompass all these principles and compose a comprehensive review to analyze the feasibility and adoptability of different therapeutics for leishmaniasis.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hima Mahor
- National Centre for Cell Science, Ganeshkhind, Pune, 411007, India
| | - Arka Mukherjee
- Trident Academy of Creative Technology, Bhubaneswar, 751024, Odisha, India
| | - Arup Sarkar
- Trident Academy of Creative Technology, Bhubaneswar, 751024, Odisha, India
| | - Bhaskar Saha
- National Centre for Cell Science, Ganeshkhind, Pune, 411007, India; Trident Academy of Creative Technology, Bhubaneswar, 751024, Odisha, India.
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Esteves S, Costa I, Luelmo S, Santarém N, Cordeiro-da-Silva A. Leishmania Vesicle-Depleted Exoproteome: What, Why, and How? Microorganisms 2022; 10:microorganisms10122435. [PMID: 36557688 PMCID: PMC9781507 DOI: 10.3390/microorganisms10122435] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/11/2022] [Revised: 11/30/2022] [Accepted: 12/03/2022] [Indexed: 12/14/2022] Open
Abstract
Leishmaniasis, a vector-borne parasitic protozoan disease, is among the most important neglected tropical diseases. In the absence of vaccines, disease management is challenging. The available chemotherapy is suboptimal, and there are growing concerns about the emergence of drug resistance. Thus, a better understanding of parasite biology is essential to generate new strategies for disease control. In this context, in vitro parasite exoproteome characterization enabled the identification of proteins involved in parasite survival, pathogenesis, and other biologically relevant processes. After 2005, with the availability of genomic information, these studies became increasingly feasible and revealed the true complexity of the parasite exoproteome. After the discovery of Leishmania extracellular vesicles (EVs), most exoproteome studies shifted to the characterization of EVs. The non-EV portion of the exoproteome, named the vesicle-depleted exoproteome (VDE), has been mostly ignored even if it accounts for a significant portion of the total exoproteome proteins. Herein, we summarize the importance of total exoproteome studies followed by a special emphasis on the available information and the biological relevance of the VDE. Finally, we report on how VDE can be studied and disclose how it might contribute to providing biologically relevant targets for diagnosis, drug, and vaccine development.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sofia Esteves
- Laboratory of Microbiology, Department of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Porto, 4050-313 Porto, Portugal
- Institute for Research and Innovation in Health (i3S), University of Porto, 4200-135 Porto, Portugal
| | - Inês Costa
- Laboratory of Microbiology, Department of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Porto, 4050-313 Porto, Portugal
- Institute for Research and Innovation in Health (i3S), University of Porto, 4200-135 Porto, Portugal
| | - Sara Luelmo
- Institute for Research and Innovation in Health (i3S), University of Porto, 4200-135 Porto, Portugal
| | - Nuno Santarém
- Laboratory of Microbiology, Department of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Porto, 4050-313 Porto, Portugal
- Institute for Research and Innovation in Health (i3S), University of Porto, 4200-135 Porto, Portugal
- Correspondence: (N.S.); (A.C.-d.-S.)
| | - Anabela Cordeiro-da-Silva
- Laboratory of Microbiology, Department of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Porto, 4050-313 Porto, Portugal
- Institute for Research and Innovation in Health (i3S), University of Porto, 4200-135 Porto, Portugal
- Correspondence: (N.S.); (A.C.-d.-S.)
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Dipeptidylcarboxypeptidase of Leishmania donovani: A potential vaccine molecule against experimental visceral leishmaniasis. Cell Immunol 2022; 375:104529. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cellimm.2022.104529] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/07/2021] [Revised: 04/11/2022] [Accepted: 04/13/2022] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
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Garg G, Singh K, Ali V. Proteomic approaches unravel the intricacy of secreted proteins of Leishmania: An updated review. BIOCHIMICA ET BIOPHYSICA ACTA-PROTEINS AND PROTEOMICS 2018; 1866:913-923. [DOI: 10.1016/j.bbapap.2018.05.011] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/09/2018] [Revised: 04/16/2018] [Accepted: 05/22/2018] [Indexed: 02/03/2023]
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Sinha AK, Namdev N, Kumar A. Rough set method accurately predicts unknown protein class/family of Leishmania donovani membrane proteome. Math Biosci 2018; 301:37-49. [PMID: 29627265 DOI: 10.1016/j.mbs.2018.03.027] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/21/2017] [Revised: 03/27/2018] [Accepted: 03/28/2018] [Indexed: 11/24/2022]
Abstract
Leishmania donovani is the primary cause of a fatal disease visceral leishmaniasis (VL) in East Africa and in the Indian subcontinent. Human beings are the only known reservoir of L. donovani and due to the emergence and the spread of drug resistance control for this disease is become worse. Therefore, identification of novel drug target is very important to develop new drug and combat drug resistance issue. Experimental determination of target is costly and time-consuming, hence it is necessary to first identify the efficient target with the accurate mathematical method and then further go for in vitro/in vivo study. Earlier we have predicted the role of protein in term of the target with Naïve Bayes probabilistic classifier on the proteins identified in our L. donovani membrane proteomics study. This time we have used alternative and the popular method named as a Rough Set method (an important part of soft computing method relevance in many real-world applications) and tried to re-visit/validate our earlier findings of L. donovani membrane proteomics and additionally decipher the unknown class/family of membrane proteins as known one. Comparing this result with other classifiers (NB, SVM, RF, C4.5 decision tree) Rough Set method has outperformed and we found the accuracy was 89.28%. This study further validates our previous finding strongly and predicts the class/family of unknown proteins which are very important for the identification and selection toward some novel drug target (still unexplored) and ultimately move in the direction of development of effective antileishmanials.
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Affiliation(s)
- Arvind Kumar Sinha
- Department of Mathematics, National Institute of Technology Raipur C.G., India
| | - Nishant Namdev
- Department of Mathematics, National Institute of Technology Raipur C.G., India
| | - Awanish Kumar
- Department of Biotechnology, National Institute of Technology Raipur C.G., India.
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Using proteomics as a powerful tool to develop a vaccine against Mediterranean visceral leishmaniasis. J Parasit Dis 2018; 42:162-170. [PMID: 29844618 DOI: 10.1007/s12639-018-0986-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/11/2017] [Accepted: 03/12/2018] [Indexed: 10/17/2022] Open
Abstract
Visceral leishmaniasis (VL) is a tropical infectious disease, which is called Mediterranean visceral leishmaniasis (MVL) in the Mediterranean area. In spite of many attempts, no effective commercial vaccine exists for MVL. To find new targets for developing antileishmanial vaccines, knowing parasite antigens that provoke the immune system are on demand. Nowadays, proteomics methods are defined as approaches for analysis of protein profiling of different cells. Within this framework, detection of new antigens is becoming more facilitated. In this review, we aimed to introduce possible targets using proteomics so; they could be used as candidates for developing vaccines against MVL. It can shed new light in the near future on the development of promising vaccines for MVL.
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Leishmania mexicana: promastigotes and amastigotes secrete protein phosphatases and this correlates with the production of inflammatory cytokines in macrophages. Parasitology 2016; 143:1409-20. [PMID: 27220404 DOI: 10.1017/s0031182016000949] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/06/2022]
Abstract
Phosphatase activity of Leishmania spp. has been shown to deregulate the signalling pathways of the host cell. We here show that Leishmania mexicana promastigotes and amastigotes secrete proteins with phosphatase activity to the culture medium, which was higher in the Promastigote Secretion Medium (PSM) as compared with the Amastigote Secretion Medium (ASM) and was not due to cell lysis, since parasite viability was not affected by the secretion process. The biochemical characterization showed that the phosphatase activity present in PSM was higher in dephosphorylating the peptide END (pY) INASL as compared with the peptide RRA (pT)VA. In contrast, the phosphatase activity in ASM showed little dephosphorylating capacity for both peptides. Inhibition assays demonstrated that the phosphatase activity of both PSM and ASM was sensible only to protein tyrosine phosphatases inhibitors. An antibody against a protein phosphatase 2C (PP2C) of Leishmania major cross-reacted with a 44·9 kDa molecule in different cellular fractions of L. mexicana promastigotes and amastigotes, however, in PSM and ASM, the antibody recognized a protein about 70 kDa. By electron microscopy, the PP2C was localized in the flagellar pocket of amastigotes. PSM and ASM induced the production of tumor necrosis factor alpha, IL-1β, IL-12p70 and IL-10 in human macrophages.
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Identification of Immunoreactive Leishmania infantum Protein Antigens to Asymptomatic Dog Sera through Combined Immunoproteomics and Bioinformatics Analysis. PLoS One 2016; 11:e0149894. [PMID: 26906226 PMCID: PMC4764335 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0149894] [Citation(s) in RCA: 21] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/30/2015] [Accepted: 02/05/2016] [Indexed: 12/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Leishmania infantum is the etiologic agent of zoonotic visceral leishmaniasis (VL) in countries in the Mediterranean basin, where dogs are the domestic reservoirs and represent important elements in the transmission of the disease. Since the major focal areas of human VL exhibit a high prevalence of seropositive dogs, the control of canine VL could reduce the infection rate in humans. Efforts toward this have focused on the improvement of diagnostic tools, as well as on vaccine development. The identification of parasite antigens including suitable major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I- and/or II-restricted epitopes is very important since disease protection is characterized by strong and long-lasting CD8+ T and CD4+ Th1 cell-dominated immunity. In the present study, total protein extract from late-log phase L. infantum promastigotes was analyzed by two-dimensional western blots and probed with sera from asymptomatic and symptomatic dogs. A total of 42 protein spots were found to differentially react with IgG from asymptomatic dogs, while 17 of these identified by Coommasie stain were extracted and analyzed. Of these, 21 proteins were identified by mass spectrometry; they were mainly involved in metabolism and stress responses. An in silico analysis predicted that the chaperonin HSP60, dihydrolipoamide dehydrogenase, enolase, cyclophilin 2, cyclophilin 40, and one hypothetical protein contain promiscuous MHCI and/or MHCII epitopes. Our results suggest that the combination of immunoproteomics and bioinformatics analyses is a promising method for the identification of novel candidate antigens for vaccine development or with potential use in the development of sensitive diagnostic tests.
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