RT Journal Article
T1 Protein Malnutrition Impairs the Immune Response and Influences the Severity of Infection in a Hamster Model of Chronic Visceral Leishmaniasis
A1 Carrillo, Eugenia
A1 Jimenez, Maria Angeles
A1 Sanchez Herrero, Carmen
A1 Cunha, Joana
A1 Martins, Camila Marinelli
A1 da Paixão Sevá, Anaiá
A1 Moreno Gonzalo, Javier
A2 Simona Stager, 
AB Leishmaniasis remains one of the world's most devastating neglected tropical diseases. It mainly affects developing countries, where it often co-exists with chronic malnutrition, one of the main risk factors for developing the disease. Few studies have been published, however, on the relationship between leishmaniasis progression and malnutrition. The present paper reports the influence of protein malnutrition on the immune response and visceral disease development in adult hamsters infected with Leishmania infantum fed either standard or low protein diets. The low protein diet induced severe malnutrition in these animals, and upon infection with L. infantum 33% had severe visceral leishmaniasis compared to only 8% of animals fed the standard diet. The infected, malnourished animals showed notable leukocyte depletion, mild specific antibody responses, impairment of lymphoproliferation, presence of parasites in blood (16.67% of the hamsters) and significant increase of the splenic parasite burden. Animals fed standard diet suffered agranulocytosis and monocytopenia, but showed stronger specific immune responses and had lower parasite loads than their malnourished counterparts. The present results show that protein malnutrition promotes visceral leishmaniasis and provide clues regarding the mechanisms underlying the impairment of the immune system.
PB Public Library of Science
SN 1932-6203
YR 2014
FD 2014
LK https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/96388
UL https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/96388
LA eng
NO Carrillo E, Jimenez MA, Sanchez C, Cunha J, Martins CM, da Paixão Sevá A, Moreno J. Protein malnutrition impairs the immune response and influences the severity of infection in a hamster model of chronic visceral leishmaniasis. PLoS One. 2014 Feb 25;9(2):e89412. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0089412. PMID: 24586759; PMCID: PMC3934886
NO This work was funded by project PI10/00829 from the Fondo de Investigación Sanitaria, http://www.isciii.es/. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
NO Instituto de Salud Carlos III
DS Docta Complutense
RD 7 oct 2024