Abstract
Leishmaniasis causes significant morbidity and mortality worldwide, constituting an important public health problem. Leishmania infections cause a wide spectrum of diseases, ranging in severity from spontaneously healing skin lesions to fatal visceral disease. Attempts to develop an effective vaccine to control leishmaniasis have been shown to be feasible, but no vaccine is in active clinical use. The ability to create genetically modified parasites by eliminating virulence or essential genes is considered a powerful alternative in the development of an effective protective vaccine. Here, recent findings related to genetically defined live attenuated Leishmania parasites as promising vaccine candidates are reviewed.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Abbreviations
- dhfr-ts :
-
dihydrofolate reductase-thymidylate synthase
- dhfr-ts - :
-
L. major dihydrofolate reductase-thymidylate synthase null mutant
- lpg2- :
-
L. major golgi guanosine diphosphate-mannose transporter LPG2 null mutant
- PGs:
-
phosphoglycans
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
About this article
Cite this article
Silvestre, R., Cordeiro-da-Silva, A. & Ouaissi, A. Live attenuated Leishmania vaccines: a potential strategic alternative. Arch. Immunol. Ther. Exp. 56, 123–126 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00005-008-0010-9
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00005-008-0010-9