Host Cell Signalling and Leishmania Mechanisms of Evasion.pdfVIP

Hindawi Publishing Corporation Journal of Tropical Medicine Volume 2012, Article ID 819512, 14 pages doi:10.1155/2012/819512 Review Article Host Cell Signalling and Leishmania Mechanisms of Evasion Marina Tiemi Shio, Kasra Hassani, Amandine Isnard, Benjamin Ralph, Irazu Contreras, Maria Adelaida Gomez, Issa Abu-Dayyeh, and Martin Olivier Centre for the Study of Host Resistance, Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre and Departments of Microbiology and Immunology and Medicine, McGill University, Room 610, 3775 University Street, Duff Medical Building, Montreal, QC, Canada H3A2B4 ´ Correspondence should be addressed to Martin Olivier, martin.olivier@mcgill.ca Received 9 June 2011; Accepted 16 August 2011 Academic Editor: Jose M. Requena Copyright © 2012 Marina Tiemi Shio et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Leishmania parasites are able to secure their survival and propagation within their host by altering signalling pathways involved in the ability of macrophages to kill pathogens or to engage adaptive immune system. An important step in this immune evasion pro- cess is the activation of host protein tyrosine phosphatase SHP-1 by Leishmania. SHP-1 has been shown to directly inactivate JAK2 and Erk1/2 and to play a role in the negative regulation of several transcription factors involved in macrophage activation. These signalling alterations contribute to the inactivation of critical macrophage functions (e.g., Nitric oxide, IL-12, and TNF-α). Addi- tionally, to interfere with IFN-γ receptor signalling, Leishmania also alters several LPS-media