Comparison of Pro-inflammatory Gene Expression Profile in Spleen and Peripheral Blood Neutrophils of BALB/C Mice Infected with Leishmania Major

Leishmaniasis is one of the common diseases between humans and animals. The present study was to investigate the expression pattern of pro-inflammatory genes in different stages of cutaneous leishmaniasis progression in order to provide a standard framework for diagnosis of various stages of the disease.

In this experimental study, 2×106 Leishmania major were injected in two groups of BALB/c mice in the base of the tail. After skin lesion, the animals were divided into control group, without treatment and the test group treated with glucantime for 30 days by intralesion injection. At the end of the second and fourth weeks of treatment, gene expression cytokines IL-12p35, CCL3, CCL4, IL-12p40, TNF-α, CCL5, IL-1α, IL-1β, IFN-γ and CCR5 was performed in peripheral blood neutrophil cells and spleen cells using conventional PCR technique. The data were analyzed through SPSS software version 16; t-tests, ANOVA and Tukey's test were also run (P ˂0.05).

In Leishmania infected mice, before treatment with glucantime, IFN-γ, IL-1β, CCR5, CCL-5, IL-12p40, IL-12p35 in peripheral blood neutrophils and IFN-γ in the spleens were expressed, which was different from the expression pattern of the genes in Leishmania infected mice treated with Glucantim.

The cytokines (IFN-γ, IL-12, TNF-α) are important factors affecting the immune response as reducing the expression of these genes causes the lesion progression in leishmaniasis.