Lu Fangli, Huang Shiguang
Department of Parasitology, Zhongshan School of Medicine, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China.
Key Laboratory of Tropical Disease Control Sun Yat-sen University, Ministry of Education, Guangzhou, China.
Front Immunol. 2017 Apr 6;8:363. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2017.00363. eCollection 2017.
Protozoan parasites such as spp., spp., spp., and are major causes of parasitic diseases in both humans and animals. The immune system plays a critical role against protozoa, but their immune mechanism remains poorly understood. This highlights the need to investigate the function of immune cells involved in the process of parasite infections and the responses of host immune system to parasite infections. Mast cells (MCs) are known to be central players in allergy and anaphylaxis, and it has been demonstrated that MCs have crucial roles in host defense against a number of different pathogens, including parasites. To date, there are many studies that have examined the interaction of helminth-derived antigens and MCs. As one of the major effector cells, MCs also play an important role in the immune response against some parasitic protozoa, but their role in protozoan infections is, however, less well characterized. Herein, we review the current knowledge about the roles of MCs and their mediators during infections involving highly pathogenic protozoa including spp., spp., spp., and . We offer a general review of the data from patients and experimental animal models infected with the aforementioned protozoa, which correlate MCs and MC-derived mediators with exacerbated inflammation and disease progression as well as protection against the parasitic infections in different circumstances. This review updates our current understanding of the roles of MCs during parasitic protozoan infections, and the participation of MCs in parasitic protozoan infections could be of a potential therapeutic target.
诸如疟原虫属、利什曼原虫属、锥虫属和弓形虫等原生动物寄生虫是人类和动物寄生虫病的主要病因。免疫系统在对抗原生动物方面发挥着关键作用，但其免疫机制仍知之甚少。这凸显了研究参与寄生虫感染过程的免疫细胞功能以及宿主免疫系统对寄生虫感染反应的必要性。肥大细胞（MCs）在过敏和过敏反应中是核心参与者，并且已经证明肥大细胞在宿主抵御包括寄生虫在内的多种不同病原体方面具有关键作用。迄今为止，有许多研究探讨了蠕虫衍生抗原与肥大细胞的相互作用。作为主要效应细胞之一，肥大细胞在针对某些寄生原生动物的免疫反应中也发挥着重要作用，然而，它们在原生动物感染中的作用尚未得到充分表征。在此，我们综述了关于肥大细胞及其介质在涉及高致病性原生动物（包括疟原虫属、利什曼原虫属、锥虫属和弓形虫）感染过程中的作用的现有知识。我们对来自感染上述原生动物的患者和实验动物模型的数据进行了全面综述，这些数据将肥大细胞和肥大细胞衍生的介质与炎症加剧、疾病进展以及在不同情况下抵御寄生虫感染联系起来。这篇综述更新了我们目前对肥大细胞在寄生原生动物感染过程中作用的理解，并且肥大细胞参与寄生原生动物感染可能成为一个潜在的治疗靶点。
