Leishmania braziliensis : partial control of experimental infection by Interleukin-12 p40 deficient mice.

• Autor(a) principal: Souza Neto, Sebastião Martins de
• Data de Publicação: 2004
• Outros Autores: Carneiro, Cláudia Martins, Vieira, Leda Quercia, Afonso, Luís Carlos Crocco
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Institucional da UFOP
• Texto Completo: http://www.repositorio.ufop.br/handle/123456789/6103; http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0074-02762004000300009
• topic: Cutaneous leishmaniasis; Leishmania braziliensis

Resistance to infection by Leishmania major has been associated with the development of a Th1 type response that is dependent on the presence of interleukin 12 (IL-12). In this work the involvement of this cytokine in the response to infection by L. braziliensis, a less virulent species in the mouse model, was evaluated. Our results show that while interferon (IFN-γ) deficient (-/-) mice inoculated L. braziliensis develop severe uncontrolled lesions, chronic lesions that remained under control up to 12 weeks of infection were observed in IL-12p40 -/- mice. IL 12p40 -/- mice had fewer parasites in their lesions than IFN-γ-/- mice. Lymph node cells from IL-12p40 -/- were capable of producing low but consistent levels of IFN-γ suggestive of its involvement in parasite control. Furthermore, as opposed to previous reports on L. major-infected animals, no switch to a Th2 response was observed in IL- 12p40 -/- infected with L. braziliensis.