Apoptosis and apoptotic mimicry in leishmania: strategies for a successful infection

Authors

  • Michelle Marini Horikawa Universidade de São Paulo. Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas. Departamento de Parasitologia
  • Maurício Scavassini Peña Universidade de São Paulo. Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas. Departamento de Parasitologia

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7594/revbio.6b.07

Keywords:

Programmed cell death, apoptosis, apoptotic mimicry, Leishmania, phosphatidylserine

Abstract

Apoptosis is an essential process for multicellular organisms, important for removing unwanted cells and regulating the number of cells in the organism. The cells in apoptosis do not induce an inflammatory reaction and are silently removed by phagocytes. This type of cell death also occurs in unicellular organisms and appears to have the same features found in metazoans. Studies in Leishmania have shown that this parasite is able to mimic and use one of the phenomena observed in apoptosis, phosphatidylserine (PS) exposure, as an adaptive mechanism to establish infection in mammals. We show in this review the strategies associated with apoptosis used by Leishmania that enable them to evade the host immune response resulting in their survival and proliferation

Downloads

Downloads

Published

2018-04-23

Issue

Vol. 6 No. 2 (2011): Especial Parasitologia

Section

Revisão

License

We ensure that our journal does not retain any copyright and that these are exclusive of the author(s) of the text. In that sense, we intend to break any restrictions to the published material and to achieve more intensely our goal of communicating science.

How to Cite

Horikawa, M. M., & Peña, M. S. (2018). Apoptosis and apoptotic mimicry in leishmania: strategies for a successful infection. Revista Da Biologia, 6(2), 32-37. https://doi.org/10.7594/revbio.6b.07