Identifying vaccine targets for anti-leishmanial vaccine development

Abstract

Leishmaniasis is a neglected tropical disease spread by an arthropod vector. It remains a significant health problem with an incidence of 0.2–0.4 million visceral leishmaniasis and 0.7–1.2 million cutaneous leishmaniasis cases each year. There are limitations associated with the current therapeutic regimens for leishmaniasis and the fact that after recovery from infection the host becomes immune to subsequent infection therefore, these factors force the feasibility of a vaccine for leishmaniasis. Publication of the genome sequence of Leishmania has paved a new way to understand the pathogenesis and host immunological status therefore providing a deep insight in the field of vaccine research. This review is an effort to study the antigenic targets in Leishmania to develop an anti-leishmanial vaccine.

Keywords::

• arthropod
• Leishmania
• pathogenesis
• vaccine

Financial & competing interests disclosure

This work was supported by NIAID, NIH grant number: P50AI074321, TMRC project. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.

Key issues

• The drawbacks associated with the existing anti-leishmanial drugs have forced the need for a vaccine; the feasibility is fueled by the fact that recovered subjects are immune to reinfection.

• The availability of genome sequence of Leishmania has provided whole array of information regarding the molecular targets, which can be exploited for the purpose of vaccine development.

• Leishmanization, although banned due to safety concerns, has made a remarkable contribution in advancement of the vaccine designing and addressing various issues concerned with the vaccine development.

• Leish-111f or LiESA/QA-21 has created positive impact in field of development of a new vaccine.

• Some of the licensed vaccines for canine have increased the interest for promoting the trials in human models.