Immunopathogenesis of experimental Chagas' disease

TL;DRAbstract

<p>Chagas' disease is a serious, life-threatening disease caused by the protozoan parasite Trypanosoma cruzi in South and Central America. Neither vaccine candidate(s) nor efficient, nontoxic chemotherapeutical agents exist at the present time. Thus 20-30% of infected individuals eventually succumb to chronic Chagas' cardiomyopathy (50 000 deaths annually). Understanding the immunopathogenesis initiating and driving the disease is therefore of primary importance, and this thesis has sought to address these issues by making use of experimental animal models.</p><p>The expression of cytokines and their receptors during the initial acute phase of the disease, at which time parasites are present in blood and organs, was investigated both at mRNA processing and post-transcriptional levels. Expression of these molecules, e.g. IL-2, IL-2R and IFN-y was demonstrated to be organ-specific, indicating that T. cruzi parasites themselves can modulate the host response during infec

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