Prospects for antimicrobial peptide-based immunotherapy approaches in Leishmania control

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Leishmaniasis is one of the neglected tropical diseases and is highly endemic in many countries. Currently, there is no adequate human vaccine and treatment to control the disease.

Areas covered: As a result of the failure of chemotherapy and toxicity, it is necessary to find another approach for the treatment of leishmaniasis. Recently, antimicrobial peptides (AMPs), originating from natural resources, have attracted much attention for their use as a new antibiotics for many infectious and noninfectious diseases. Natural AMPs are named interchangeably as host defense peptides. They are naturally active in the innate immune system as a primary defense mechanism in most species all over the world. Several AMPs have been tested in in vitro and in vivo experiments against leishmaniasis.

Expert commentary: Most AMPs require proper conformation to be active. Leishmania (L.) tarentolae as a nonpathogenic strain, is an effective tool not only for vaccine development but also for therapy. Recombinant L. tarentolae expressing selective or combined AMPs is a suggestive approach for leishmaniasis or any other infectious disease treatment.

KEYWORDS:

• Leishmania
• antimicrobial peptide
• drug design
• neglected tropical diseases
• therapeutics

Declaration of interest

S Rafati was funded by a research grant ID 940007 and 95824986 from Iran National Science Foundation. F Zahedifard received funding from Pasteur Institute of Iran as part of her Ph.D. studentship. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. 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.

Reviewer disclosures

Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.

Additional information

Funding

S Rafati was funded by a research grant ID 940007 and 95824986 from Iran National Science Foundation. F Zahedifard received funding from Pasteur Institute of Iran as part of her Ph.D. studentship.