ABSTRACT
Background: Visceral leishmaniasis (VL) or Kala-Azar (KA) is one of the most deadly forms of disease among all neglected tropical diseases. There are no satisfactory drugs or vaccine candidates available for this dreaded disease. Our previous studies showed promising therapeutic and prophylactic efficacy of the live, radio-attenuated parasites through intramuscular (I.M.) and intraperitoneal (I.P.) route in BALB/c mice model. Methods: The T-cell proliferation level, the mRNA expression level of inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) and tumor growth factor-beta (TGF-β) genes and finally the phosphorylation levels of phosphoinositide dependent kinase 1 (PDK1), phosphoinositide 3 kinase (PI3K) and p38 mitogen activated protein kinase (p38MAPK) molecules were checked in BALB/c mice model immunized with radio-attenuated Leishmania donovani parasites through I.M. route. Results: Higher T-cell proliferation, increased iNOS level, and suppressed TGF-β level were found in treated infected animal groups (100 and 150 Gy) in relation to untreated infected animals. Likewise, phosphorylation levels of PDK1, PI3K and p38MAPK of these two groups were increased when compared to untreated infected controls. Conclusion: The clearance of the parasites from treated infected groups of animals may be mediated by the restoration of T-cell due to therapy with radio-attenuated L. donovani parasites. The killing of parasites was mediated by increase in nitric oxide release through PDK1, PI3K and p38MAPK signaling pathways. A lower TGF-β expression has augmented the restored Th1 ambience in the 100 and 150 Gy treated animal groups proving further the efficacy of the candidate vaccine. .
Subject(s)
Animals , Female , Male , Leishmaniasis Vaccines/immunology , Leishmaniasis, Visceral/immunology , /genetics , Blotting, Western , Cell Proliferation , Disease Models, Animal , Gene Expression Profiling , Injections, Intramuscular , Injections, Intraperitoneal , Leishmaniasis Vaccines/administration & dosage , Leishmaniasis, Visceral/prevention & control , Mice, Inbred BALB C , Nitric Oxide Synthase Type II/genetics , Parasite Load , Phosphorylation , RNA, Messenger , Th1 Cells/immunology , Transforming Growth Factor beta/genetics , Vaccines, Attenuated/administration & dosage , Vaccines, Attenuated/immunology , /geneticsABSTRACT
The East Calcutta Wetland (ECW), a Ramsar site in India, acts as the only sink for both city sewages as well as effluents from the surrounding small- scale industries and is alarmingly polluted with heavy metals. The three best edible major carp species rohu (Labeo rohita,), catla (Catla catla,) and mrigala (Cirrhinus mrigala) were undertaken to monitor lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) and malate dehydrogenase (MDH) by cellulose acetate electrophoresis (CAE) to assess the effects of pollutants, if any. Crude tissue extracts were prepared from brain, eye, heart, skeletal muscle and kidney tissue respectively from each type of fish. No differences were not found in MDH of catla from both sites for all tissues analyzed in this study. Rohu also showed similar mobility for all tissues except for heart tissue which was distinctly different in fishes from ECW site than that of its counterpart from non ECW site. On the other hand, MDH of two tissues of mrigala, eye and muscle respectively showed different migration patterns. LDH profiles for all tissues of three fish species from both the sites were consistently similar, only the expression levels of muscle LDH of mrigala and kidney LDH of rohu varied little.