Mechanisms of Parasite Evasion: Leishmania as an Example

Leishmanien besitzen eine Vielzahl von Mechanismen, die humorale und zelluläre Immunabwehr effektiv zu unterlaufen. Diese hängen eng mit der Expression von hauptsächlich zwei Glykokonjugaten auf der Parasitenoberfläche zusammen, dem gp63 und dem Lipophosphoglykan. Die Parasiten sind einerseits schlechte Aktivatoren des alternativen Komplementweges und umgehen damit ihre eigene extrazelluläre Lyse. Oberflächengebundene Komplementfaktoren fördern andererseits die Aufnahme der Leishmanien durch Makrophagen. Solange diese nicht durch T-Zellen aktiviert sind, dienen sie den Parasiten als "Refugium". Dies gilt insbesondere, als Leishmanien in der Lage sind, 1. den "oxidative burst" zu hemmen; 2. toxische Sauerstoffmetaboliten zu entgiften; 3. abbauende lysosomale Enzyme zu hemmen und 4. das saure Milieu in den Lysosomen für ihren eigenen Metabolismus auszunutzen. Schließlich unterlaufen Leishmanien die zelluläre Immunabwehr des Wirts, indem sie die Aktivierung von T-Lymphozyten hemmen und die Expansion von T-Zell-Sub-populationen bewirken, die für ihr eigenes Überleben nützlich sind.Leishmania display a variety of mechanisms for effective evasion of the humoral and cellular immune responses of the host which are strongly associ-ated with the expression of two major surface glycoconjugates, gp63 and lipophosphoglycan. The parasites are poor activators of the alternative com-plement pathway thus avoiding their own extracellular lysis. Complement bound on the surface of promastigotes promotes the uptake of leishmania by macrophages which function as »safe targets« as long as they are not acti-vated by T lymphocytes. This is due to the fact that intracellular parasites are able to 1. decrease the oxidative burst; 2. scavenge toxic oxygen metabolites; 3. inhibit degradative lysosomal enzymes; 4. exploit the acidic milieu of lysosomes for their own metabolism. Finally, leishmania have been shown to evade the host's cellular immune response by down-regulating T cell-activat-ing processes and by initiating the expansion of T cell subpopulations which promote their own survival

Secondary cytotoxic allograft responses in vitro. III. The immunogenicity of allogeneic membrane fragments.

The immunogenicity of murine membrane fragments was tested both in primary and in secondary in vitro cytotoxic allograft responses, and compared to that of intact allogeneic stimulator cells. Allogeneic membrane fragments induced poor proliferative and cytotoxic responses in normal splenic responder cells. However reexposure of immune responder T cells to allogeneic membrane fragments triggered the generation of highly reactive cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL). Moreover, the generation of secondary CTL as induced by allogeneic membrane fragments was preceded by only a marginal cell proliferation. The results obtained are compatible with the concept that serologically defined (SD) antigens alone are capable of triggering alloimmune T cells to differentiate highly reactive secondary CTL