Available reports suggest that,
Leishmania donovani antigen KMP-11 may
be significant in the modulation of immune responses in visceral leishmaniasis (VL).
This study evaluated vaccine prospect of presentation of KMP-11 antigen through
murine dendritic cells against VL in infected BALB/c mice. We report here that immunization
with KMP-11 delivered through bone marrow derived dendritic cells can lead to killing
of
L. donovani in infected BALB/c mice.
Furthermore, the strategy to use KMP-11 as vaccine delivered through DCs can stimulate
the production of IFN-g, IL-12, IL-2R and TNF-α with
concomitant down-regulation of IL-10 and IL-4. Furthermore, anti-leishmanial defence function (ROS) of splenocytes was observed increased in the presence
of DC-delivered KMP-11 vaccination accompanied with an increased p38-MAPK signalling
in vaccinated splenocytes. We summarized from our data that
KMP-11 delivered through DCs has potential for eliciting protective immunity through
pro-inflammatory cytokines (IFN-γ, IL-12, IL-2, TNF-α) following an up-regulation
in signalling event of p38-MAPK. Therefore the study suggests a new control strategy
against VL in future.