Role of thrombopoiesis in leishmaniasis

Abstract

The blood vascular system of mammals is unique in nature; inhabited with a pool of tiny small cell fragments called platelets; attributed with the most important patrolling tasks to check integrity of the entire endothelial landscape. Their production is tightly coupled with hematopoietic system where everything starts from self renewable multipotent hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) which eventually undergo dual step (megakaryopoiesis-thrombopoiesis) thrombocytes production. Several cytokines tune the fate of every progenitor cells during hematopoiesis through temporal activation of specific transcription factors. Though platelets generated through steady state hematopoiesis are involved in the regulation of vascular homeostasis, these cells can sense pathogens through its innate immune sensors and can mount crucial responses against the invading pathogen. For this, the primary aim of many infections including Leishmania is to induce thrombocytopenia within infected host. But the underlying mechanism of this induced thrombocytopenia in Leishmania infection has not been evaluated. Elucidation of these mechanisms will be fruitful to design new chemotherapeutic strategies.