The criminal association of Leishmania parasites and viruses.

The criminal association of Leishmania parasites and viruses. Curr Opin Microbiol. 2018 Aug 07;46:65-72 Authors: Rossi M, Fasel N Abstract In nature, humans infected with protozoan parasites can encounter viruses, which could alter their host immune response. The impact of viruses on human parasitic diseases remains largely unexplored due to the highly sterilized environment in experimental studies and the difficulty to draw a correlation between co-infection and pathology. Recent studies show that viral infections exacerbate pathology and promote dissemination of some Leishmania infections, based on a hyper-inflammatory reaction driven by type I interferons. Thus, not only the infecting parasite species, but also bystander viral infections could be a major determinant of the outcome of Leishmania infection. In this review, we focus on the contribution of viral co-infection to the exacerbation of leishmaniasis's pathology and its possible impact on treatment and vaccination strategies. PMID: 30096485 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Source: Current Opinion in Microbiology - Category: Microbiology Authors: Tags: Curr Opin Microbiol Source Type: research