Autoimmunity in Chagas' disease

ABSTRACT

This paper reports on research that has been carried out over the last 25 years, aiming at the understanding of basic mechanisms associated with Chagas'disease lesions. Early papers that showed evidence for a role of autoimmunity in the pathogenesis of the disease have been followed by an increasing number of publications in this field, but several intricate immunologic features remains to be understood. In fact, the multidisciplinary research work that has been done in several laboratories sheds light on some molecular features of very intricate immunological mechanisms in this disease. However, the Typanosoma cruzi-induced, clinically recognized immunologic manifestations still require further research in the fields of parasitology, biochemistry, molecular biology and immunology in order to unravel their pathogenetic mechanisms.