A discovery by Simona Stäger's team could help come up with a treatment to the most serious form of leishmaniasis. Leishmaniasis is a tropical disease affecting a growing number of people worldwide. Each year, between 700,000 and 1 million new cases are reported.
Caused by a protozoan parasite of the genus Leishmania, which is transmitted to humans by the simple bite of a sand fly, leishmaniasis comprises three clinical forms, of which the visceral form is the most serious. If left untreated, visceral leishmaniasis, also known as black fever, is almost always fatal. Most cases occur in Bangladesh, Brazil, Ethiopia, India, Nepal, and Sudan.
Professor Simona Stäger of the Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS) and her team, in collaboration with other researchers from INRS and McGill University, have observed a surprising immune mechanism linked to chronic visceral leishmaniasis. This discovery could be an important step towards a new therapeutic approach to this disease. The results of their research have been published in the journal Cell Reports.
In many infections, CD4 T cells play a key role in defending the affected organism. Unfortunately, in the case of chronic infections such as leishmaniasis, maintaining the number of functional CD4 cells becomes an important issue, as the immune system is constantly activated to react against the pathogen affecting the infected person. However, the study carried out by Professor Stäger in her laboratory at INRS's.