Abstract
Leishmania donovani is an obligate intracellular parasite responsible for the systemic disease visceral leishmaniasis. During the course of the disease, the parasite is found in the spleen, liver and bone marrow. Characteristic of the liver immune response to leishmaniasis is a type of inflammation (“ggranulomatous inflammation”) that results in the formation of granulomas, structures comprised of an infiltrate of mononuclear cells surrounding a core of infected macrophages. Granulomas help limit the spread of infection and facilitate the killing of parasites.
Liver-resident macrophages (Kupffer cells) are able to spontaneously kill many infectious agents, but L. donovani is capable of reproducing inside these cells. Activation of Kupffer cells is required to turn them from host cell to a cell that is able to kill intracellular L. donovani . This process of activation is regulated by cytokines (notably IFNγ) produced by many different types of leukocytes, including natural killer (NK) cells ([1]), CD4 + and CD8 + T cells ([2]), and NKT cells ([3]).
This research is, in part, funded by EPSRC grant number EP/F032749/1 The TRANSIT Programme - Discipline Bridging at the University of York.
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Albergante, L., Timmis, J., Andrews, P., Beattie, L., Kaye, P.M. (2010). A Petri Net Model of Granulomatous Inflammation. In: Hart, E., McEwan, C., Timmis, J., Hone, A. (eds) Artificial Immune Systems. ICARIS 2010. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 6209. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-14547-6_1
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