Gene Expression Profiling in Leishmania: From Basic Research to Vaccines and Drug Targets

Dear Colleagues,

Leishmaniasis is a vector-borne neglected parasitic disease associated with poverty, caused by obligate intracellular protozoan parasites of the Leishmania genus. Visceral leishmaniasis (VL) is the most severe form, being fatal if left untreated. Gene expression profiling of Leishmania differentiation has already provided vast information on steady-state mRNA and protein levels. State-of-the-art approaches would provide more accurate analyses to address issues such as parasite asynchrony in terms of differentiation, cell cycle phase and growth rate, such as accuracy of the definitions procyclic, nectomonad, leptomonad, haptomonad and metacyclic promastigote forms, or phases and events of differentiation to amastigotes during the initial stages of mammalian phagocyte infection. Hence, gene expression profiling contributes to a better understanding of the parasite's biology. This background might benefit vaccine and drug target candidate discovery. The eradication of leishmaniasis is far from being achieved. Leishmania genomes contain more than 8000 protein-coding genes. New approaches simultaneously targeting numerous proteins (i.e., drug combinations or vaccines immunizing against many antigens) may lead to a significant advance in this field. 

For this Special Issue, we welcome research articles, reviews and commentaries on the gene expression profiling of wild-type and genetically modified Leishmania parasites or their extracellular vesicles, including data mining, meta-analysis of previous datasets, strategies to select new vaccine and drug target candidates, methodological aspects of high-throughput gene expression analysis and other proposals related to the topic.

Dr. Pedro José Alcolea
Dr. Ana M. Alonso
Guest Editors

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• Leishmania spp.
• genomics
• transcriptomics
• proteomics
• promastigotes
• amastigotes
• extracellular vesicles
• vaccine candidates
• drug target candidates
• meta-analysis