Several natural and hemisyntetic passifloricins were assayed against Leishmania panamensis amastigotes. High leishmanicidal activity as well as toxicity was observed. The structure of a new compound is also reported.

Kojic acid (KA) is a fungal metabolite used as a topical treatment skin-whitening cosmetic agent for melasma in humans; however its potential as an anti-leishmanial agent is unknown. Chemotherapy is one of the most effective treatments for Leishmaniasis. However, the drugs available are expensive, invasive, require long-term treatment and have severe side effects. Thus, the development of new e...

Leishmania amastigotes manipulate the activity of macrophages to favor their own success. However, very little is known about the role of innate recognition and signaling triggered by amastigotes in this host-parasite interaction. In this work we developed a new infection model in adult Drosophila to take advantage of its superior genetic resources to identify novel host factors limiting Leishm...

The present study reports the production of the rabbit anti-Leishmania (L.) chagasi hyperimmune serum, the standardization of the immunohistochemistry (IHC) technique and the evaluation of its employment in cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) lesions diagnosed by Leishmania sp. culture isolation. Thirty fragments of active CL lesions were examined as well as 10 fragments of cutaneous mycosis lesions a...

Attempts to recreate all the developmental stages of Trypanosoma cruzi in vitro have thus far been met with partial success. It is possible, for instance, to produce trypomastigotes in tissue culture and to obtain metacyclic trypomastigotes in axenic conditions. Even though T. cruzi amastigotes are known to differentiate from trypomastigotes and metacyclic trypomastigotes, it has only been poss...

Resistance to leishmanial infections depends on intracellular parasite killing by activated host macrophages through the L-arginine-nitric oxide (NO) metabolic pathway. Here we investigate the cell death process induced by NO for the intracellular protozoan Leishmania amazonensis. Exposure of amastigotes to moderate concentrations of NO-donating compounds (acidified sodium nitrite NaNO(2) or ni...

Epimastigote forms of Trypanosoma cruzi (the etiologic agent of Chagas disease) internalize and store extracellular macromolecules in lysosome-related organelles (LROs) called reservosomes, which are positive for the cysteine protease cruzipain. Despite the importance of endocytosis for cell proliferation, macromolecule internalization remains poorly understood in the most clinically relevant p...

The last step of Leishmania intracellular life cycle is the egress of amastigotes from the host cell and their uptake by adjacent cells. Using multidimensional live imaging of long-term-infected macrophage cultures we observed that Leishmania amazonensis amastigotes were transferred from cell to cell when the donor host macrophage delivers warning signs of imminent apoptosis. They were extruded...

Neutrophils are multifaceted cells that, upon activation, release meshes of chromatin associated with different proteins, known as neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs). Leishmania amazonensis promastigotes and amastigotes induce NET release, we have identified the signaling pathways involved in extrusion activated by promastigotes. Amastigotes maintain infection vertebrate hosts, shown associa...

In the accompanying paper by Ilg et al., it was shown that Leishmania mexicana promastigotes covalently modify a secreted acid phosphatase and other proteins by carbohydrate epitopes characteristic for lipophosphoglycan (LPG). In this study, the reaction of the anti-LPG monoclonal antibodies (mAbs AP3 and L7.25) and of mAb L3.13, an antibody directed against an epitope present on the secreted a...