Evaluation of the inflammatory response in BALB/c mice infected with attenuated strain of Leishmania major

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVESCutaneous leishmaniasis is a disease caused by a Leishmania major. Despite the many of vaccine design researchers, an effective vaccine based on an attenuated strain of the parasite has not been introduced. The aim of this study is to investigate the inflammatory responses against the attenuated strain of passage ۴ and ۷ of Leishmania major parasite in BALB/c mice.MATERIALS AND METHODSIn this study, passages ۴ and ۷ of the standard strain of Leishmania major parasite were injected into the base of the tail of female BALB/c mice, after the appearance of a skin lesion, tissues from wound, blood, spleen, liver and lymph node were evaluated on days (۱, ۱۵, ۳۰, ۴۵) for the expression of IL-۱۲p۳۵, IL-۱۲p۴۰, TNF-α, IL-۱α, IL-۴, IL-۱۷, IL-۱۰, TGF_β, Interferon-γ and AIRE inflammatory genes by RT-PCR method.RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONTNF-α, TGF-β, IL-۱۰ genes were expressed in mice infected with passage ۴, which is similar to the expression pattern caused by infected with passage ۱ (control), in mice infected with passage ۷, the expression of TNF-α genes but not IL-۱۷, IL-۱۰ and TGF-β was observed and lesion appeared later in this passage.CONCLUSIONThe expression of the IL-۱۰ gene in mice infected with the passage ۷ of parasite, indicated that the attenuated strain can cause a change in the immune inflammatory response against the parasite to controlling the disease and provide the basis for investigating the using of the attenuated strain to vaccine design.

کلیدواژه ها:

Attenuated Leishmania major ، Inflammatory response ، BALB/C mice