Infectious Diseases Laboratory, National Institute of Immunology, New Delhi, India.
Department of Biological Sciences and Engineering, Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology, Bhopal, India.
Front Immunol. 2021 Dec 7;12:699887. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2021.699887. eCollection 2021.
The parasite has to cross various immunological barriers for successful infection. Parasites have evolved mechanisms to evade host immune responses, which hugely contributes to the successful infection and transmission by parasites. One way in which a parasite evades immune surveillance is by expressing molecular mimics of the host molecules in order to manipulate the host responses. In this study, we report a hypothetical protein, TIP (PbANKA_124360.0), which is a homolog of the human T-cell immunomodulatory protein (TIP). The latter possesses immunomodulatory activities and suppressed the host immune responses in a mouse acute graft--host disease (GvHD) model. The protein, TIP, is expressed on the merozoite surface and exported to the host erythrocyte surface upon infection. It is shed in the blood circulation by the activity of an uncharacterized membrane protease(s). The shed TIP could be detected in the host serum during infection. Our results demonstrate that the shed TIP exhibits binding on the surface of macrophages and reduces their inflammatory cytokine response while upregulating the anti-inflammatory cytokines such as TGF-β and IL-10. Such manipulated immune responses are observed in the later stage of malaria infection. TIP induced Th2-type gene transcript changes in macrophages, hinting toward its potential to regulate the host immune responses against the parasite. Therefore, this study highlights the role of a -released protein, TIP, in immune evasion using macrophages, which may represent the critical strategy of the parasite to successfully survive and thrive in its host. This study also indicates the human malaria parasite TIP as a potential diagnostic molecule that could be exploited in lateral flow-based immunochromatographic tests for malaria disease diagnosis.
寄生虫必须穿越各种免疫屏障才能成功感染。寄生虫已经进化出逃避宿主免疫反应的机制,这极大地促进了寄生虫的成功感染和传播。寄生虫逃避免疫监视的一种方法是表达与宿主分子相似的分子,以操纵宿主反应。在这项研究中,我们报告了一个假定的蛋白质 TIP(PbANKA_124360.0),它是人类 T 细胞免疫调节蛋白(TIP)的同源物。后者具有免疫调节活性,并在小鼠急性移植物抗宿主病(GvHD)模型中抑制宿主免疫反应。该蛋白 TIP 表达在裂殖子表面,并在感染时被运送到宿主红细胞表面。它通过未被表征的膜蛋白酶(s)的活性在血液循环中脱落。在感染期间,可在宿主血清中检测到脱落的 TIP。我们的结果表明,脱落的 TIP 表现出与巨噬细胞表面的结合,并降低其炎症细胞因子反应,同时上调抗炎细胞因子,如 TGF-β和 IL-10。在疟疾感染的后期观察到这种被操纵的免疫反应。TIP 在巨噬细胞中诱导 Th2 型基因转录变化,暗示其可能调节宿主对寄生虫的免疫反应。因此,这项研究强调了寄生虫释放的蛋白质 TIP 通过巨噬细胞逃避免疫的作用,这可能代表寄生虫成功生存和在其宿主中茁壮成长的关键策略。该研究还表明,人类疟疾寄生虫 TIP 作为一种潜在的诊断分子,可用于基于侧向流动的免疫层析试验进行疟疾疾病诊断。