Abstract
Leishmaniasis is an important vector-borne neglected tropical disease caused by Leishmania parasites. Current anti-Leishmania chemotherapy is unsatisfactory, justifying the continued search for alternative treatment options. Herein, we demonstrate that luciferase-expressing Leishmania infantum axenic amastigotes, unlike promastigotes, are highly infectious to BALB/c mice and thus generate a robust bioluminescent signal in target organs, such as the liver and the spleen, as early as two weeks after infection. Treatment with the reference drugs amphotericin B and miltefosine was effective at reducing parasite burdens. This model allows the assessment of treatment efficacy using whole-mouse bioluminescence imaging without the need to wait several weeks for spleen infections to be detectable by this non-invasive method. In conclusion, we propose the use of this model in an initial approach to evaluate the treatment efficacy of promising chemical entities without having to sacrifice large numbers of animals or to wait several days for a readout.
Highlights
Leishmaniasis is an important vector-borne neglected tropical disease caused by Leishmania parasites
We investigated the infectivity of luciferase-expressing L. infantum axenic amastigotes in BALB/c mice
We found that this parasite form is highly infectious and generates a robust bioluminescent signal in target organs suitable for the evaluation of treatment efficacy using whole-mouse live imaging
Summary
Leishmaniasis is an important vector-borne neglected tropical disease caused by Leishmania parasites. We demonstrated that luciferase-expressing L. infantum axenic amastigotes[22] injected intravenously generate a robust bioluminescent signal in mice on the first day of infection[25]. To assess if this signal could still be detected at later time points post-infection, allowing the assessment of treatment efficacy in vivo, we infected BALB/c mice with 108 L. infantum axenic amastigotes or promastigotes intravenously (IV) (Fig. 1).
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