Sukla, Soumi ; Nath, Himadri ; Kamran, Mohd. ; Ejazi, Sarfaraz Ahmad ; Ali, Nahid ; Das, Pradeep ; Ravichandiran, V. ; Roy, Syamal ; Biswas, Subhajit (2022) Detection of Leptomonas seymouri narna-like virus in serum samples of visceral leishmaniasis patients and its possible role in disease pathogenesis Scientific Reports, 12 (1). ISSN 2045-2322
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Official URL: http://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-18526-9
Related URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-18526-9
Abstract
Kala-azar/Visceral Leishmaniasis (VL) caused by Leishmania donovani (LD) is often associated with Leptomonas seymouri (LS) co-infection in India. Leptomonas seymouri narna-like virus 1 (Lepsey NLV1) has been reported in multi-passaged laboratory isolates of VL samples which showed LD-LS co-infection. A pertinent question was whether this virus of LS is detectable in direct clinical samples. DNA from the serum of twenty-eight LD diagnosed patients was subjected to LD-specific and LS-specific PCR to reconfirm the presence of LD parasites and to detect LD-LS co-infections. RNA extracted from same samples was subjected to RT-PCR, qRT-PCR and sequencing using virus-specific primers to detect/identify and quantify the virus. The presence of the virus was confirmed in thirteen of eighteen (72%) recently collected VL and PKDL samples. Cytokine profiling showed significantly elevated IL-18 in only LD infected patients compared to the virus-positive LD and control samples. IL-18 is crucial for Th1 and macrophage activation which eventually clears the parasite. The Lepsey NLV1 interaction with the immune system results in reduced IL-18 which favors LD survival and increased parasitic burden. The study emphasizes the need to revisit LD pathogenesis in the light of the association and persistence of a protozoan virus in kala-azar and PKDL patients.
Item Type: | Article |
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Source: | Copyright of this article belongs to Springer Nature Limited |
ID Code: | 130107 |
Deposited On: | 29 Nov 2022 03:44 |
Last Modified: | 29 Nov 2022 03:44 |
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