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The protozoa of the genus Leishmania cause a complex of diseases called leishmaniases. The disease can be asymptomatic or manifest with a wide range of symptoms, including severe systemic disease that can be fatal. Susceptibility of the host to infection is controlled by many genes, but the mechanism of regulation remains unknown. Host sex also influences the course of infection. The disadvantages of genetic analyses performed in humans can be overcome by using a mouse model. To study the genes that influence susceptibility to Leishmania major infection in mice, a special model consisting of 20 recombinant CcS/Dem congenic strains was developed. These strains were generated by crossing BALB/cHeA (susceptible to infection) and STS/A (resistant to infection) strains. Each strain in the CcS/Dem series represents a unique combination of 12.5 % of the genome of the STS/A strain and 87.5% of the genome of the BALB/cHeA strain. F2 hybrids between the BALB/c and CcS-9 strains were used in the present work. The mice were infected with L. major and after eight weeks the infection parameters were evaluated: size of skin lesions, hepatomegaly, splenomegaly, amount of parasites in the spleen and lymph nodes, degree of eosinophil infiltration in the lymph nodes, and serum levels of IFNγ, IL-4, IL-10, IL-12,... |
