Endocrine Abstracts

Objective: Visceral Leishmaniasis is a macrophage associated disorder. About 5 percent of the patients may develop insulin dependent diabetes mellitus. It appears to have a direct action on pancreatic beta cells, resulting in initial insulin release followed by impaired insulin secretion. Within this context we looked into alternate therapies of treatment.

Methods: In this study, we investigated whether alteration in the CD2 mediated coordination of an immune response was associated with down regulation of CD4 associated Th1 cell response during Visceral Leishmaniasis (VL) and insulin secretion.

Results: Leishmania donovani (Ld) infection in VL patients markedly reduced expression of CD2 cell surface antigen on CD4+ cells. T-cells of VL patients were mostly in G0/G1 stage of the cell cycle (98.20%) with little or no activity of protein kinase C-alpha (PKC-alpha) isoform. However, pre-incubation with activating anti-CD2 monoclonal antibody (MAb) resulted in a corresponding increase up to 2.52-fold in T-cells of G2/M population supported by both activity and expression of PKC-alpha isoform.

Conclusion: These findings imply that infection with L. donovani induces less CD2 on the surface of CD4+ T-cells, which once activated orchestrate the protective IFN-gamma dominant host defense mechanism via PKC-mediated signal transduction and cell cycle but sugar control strategies must also be undertaken simultaneously to circumvent infection.