Department of Parasitology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo, No. 25, Kynsey Road, Colombo 8, Sri Lanka.
Department of Molecular Medicine, School of Interdisciplinary Sciences and Technology, Jamia Hamdard, New Delhi 110062, India.
Parasitology. 2024 Jan;151(1):1-14. doi: 10.1017/S0031182023001129. Epub 2023 Nov 28.
Leishmaniasis is a vector-borne parasitic disease caused by parasites with a spectrum of clinical manifestations, ranging from skin lesions to severe visceral complications. Treatment of this infection has been extremely challenging with the concurrent emergence of drug resistance. The differential gene expression and the discrepancies in protein functions contribute to the appearance of 2 distinct phenotypes: resistant and sensitive, but the current diagnostic tools fail to differentiate between them. The identification of gene expression patterns and molecular mechanisms coupled with antimony (Sb) resistance can be leveraged to prompt diagnosis and select the most effective treatment methods. The present study attempts to use comparative expression of Sb resistance-associated genes in resistant and sensitive , to disclose their relative abundance in clinical or selected isolates to gain an understanding of the molecular mechanisms of Sb response/resistance. Data suggest that the analysis of resistance gene expression would verify the Sb resistance or susceptibility only to a certain extent; however, none of the individual expression patterns of the studied genes was diagnostic as a biomarker of Sb response of . The findings highlighted will be useful in bridging the knowledge gap and discovering innovative diagnostic tools and novel therapeutic targets.
利什曼病是一种由寄生虫引起的虫媒寄生虫病，具有广泛的临床表现，从皮肤损伤到严重的内脏并发症。由于药物耐药性的同时出现，这种感染的治疗极具挑战性。差异基因表达和蛋白质功能的差异导致出现两种不同的表型：耐药和敏感，但目前的诊断工具无法区分它们。鉴定基因表达模式和分子机制以及与锑（Sb）耐药性相结合，可以促进诊断并选择最有效的治疗方法。本研究试图利用耐药相关基因在耐药和敏感中的表达差异，揭示其在临床或选定分离株中的相对丰度，以了解 Sb 反应/耐药性的分子机制。数据表明，耐药基因表达的分析只能在一定程度上验证 Sb 的耐药性或敏感性；然而，所研究基因的单个表达模式都不能作为 Sb 反应的生物标志物。突出的发现将有助于弥合知识差距，发现创新的诊断工具和新的治疗靶点。
