Immune Responses in Cutaneous Leishmaniasis: in vitro Thelper1/Thelper2 Cy-tokine Profiles Using Live Versus Killed Leishmania major

Akram  Miramin-Mohammadi; Amir Javadi; Seyyed Ebrahim Eskandari; Mahmood  Nateghi-Rostami; Ali Khamesipour

doi:10.18502/jad.v15i1.6491

Akram Miramin-Mohammadi Center for Research and Training in Skin Diseases and Leprosy, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
Amir Javadi Department of Social Medicines, Qazvin University of Medical Sciences, Qazvin, Iran
Seyyed Ebrahim Eskandari Center for Research and Training in Skin Diseases and Leprosy, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
Mahmood Nateghi-Rostami Department of Parasitology, Pasteur Institute of Iran, Tehran, Iran
Ali Khamesipour Center for Research and Training in Skin Diseases and Leprosy, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

DOI: https://doi.org/10.18502/jad.v15i1.6491

Keywords: Cutaneous leishmaniasis; Live Leishmania; Heat-killed Leishmania; In vitro Immune response

Abstract

Background: Recovery from cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) leads to protection against further lesion development. In contrast, vaccination using killed parasites does not induce enough protection; the reason(s) is not currently known but might be related to different immune response induced against live versus killed parasites. In this study, Th1/Th2 cyto-kine profiles of CL patients were evaluated against live versus killed Leishmania major.

Methods: In this study peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) of the volunteers with active CL lesion (CL), history of CL (HCL) and healthy volunteers were cultured and stimulated with live or killed Leishmania major, the superna-tants were collected and levels of IFN-γ, IL-5 and IL-10 were titrated using ELISA method.

Results: The results showed that IFN-γ levels in CL patients (p< 0.001) and HCL volunteers (p< 0.005) are signifi-cantly higher when stimulated with live than stimulated with killed L. major. IFN-γ production in PBMC volunteers with CL and HCL stimulated with live or heat-killed L. major was significantly (p< 0.001) higher than in unstimulated ones. The level of IL-5 in CL patients (p< 0.005) and HCL volunteers (p< 0.001) are significantly lower when stimulated with live than killed L. major. There was no significant difference between the levels of IL-10 in PBMC stimulated with either live or killed L. major.

Conclusion: It is concluded that using live Leishmania induces a stronger Th1 type of immune response which justify using leishmanization as a control measure against CL.