Abstract
Leprosy is a chronic infectious disease whose evolution involves complex immune mechanisms of the host that influence the clinical presentation of the disease. For many years, the main interpretation of the host defense response was based on characterization of the established immune paradigm between T helper (Th) 1 and Th2 lymphocytes. However, with advances in the knowledge of immunology, new approaches have emerged along with the development of new immunological pathways that have changed the interpretation of the long-established paradigm of the polar forms of the disease, especially with the identification of new subtypes of T lymphocytes such as Th9, Th17, Th22, and Tregs. Thus, this review discusses the role of these new subtypes of T helper lymphocytes and how the development of the immune response of these cells modifies the pattern of the Th1/Th2 response in the immunopathogenesis of leprosy.
Highlights
Leprosy is an ancient, insidious disease that causes tissue and demyelinating lesions in the peripheral nerves [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10]
With respect to the inflammatory infiltrate, the immunostaining of dermal dendrocytes (FXIIIA+) and plasmacytoid dendritic cells (CD123+) was predominantly detected near the vessels and granulomas in the tuberculoid form [34]. These findings demonstrated that the presence of dendritic cells in the epidermis or areas close to the infiltrate participate in the development of an effective immune response against M. leprae [34]
This review highlights the advances in the field of immunology that have been gained in recent years
Summary
Insidious disease that causes tissue and demyelinating lesions in the peripheral nerves [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10]. The increase of FGF b in the lepromatous form of the disease reinforces the crucial role of this growth factor in development of the reparative response, since this clinical form is associated with greater bacillary spread, greater tissue damage, and, a greater number of injuries [11, 81] Treg lymphocytes represent another subpopulation of lymphocytes with the phenotype CD4+ CD25+ FoxP3+, which are involved in the immunopathological response in leprosy. Immunology of leprosy, while increasing our knowledge about the complexity of the immunopathogenesis of the disease, opens up several research opportunities for better understanding and development of therapeutic targets in leprosy [99, 100, 101] and infectious diseases, as classically already reported in leprosy immunology studies
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