A New Vaccine Strategy of Dendritic Cell Presented Kinetoplastid Membrane (KMP-11) as Immunogen for Control against Experimental Visceral Leishmaniasis

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.