Endalew Yizengaw Poster 2024

Asst Prof Endalew Yizengaw

Bahir Dar University, Ethiopia    

Clinical presentations, parasite genotypes, gene expression and immunological profiles of cutaneous leishmaniasis patients in lay gayint, northwest Ethiopia
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Poster Abstract

Introduction: Cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) is mainly caused by Leishmania (L) aethiopica in Ethiopia. It presents in different clinical forms. Data on the genetic diversity of L. aethiopica is scarce. Studies are only available by fragment length polymorphism, microsatellite genotyping, isoenzyme analysis, and single gene sequencing. There is limited information on the immune response in L. aethiopica-infected patients. This study aimed to determine the Clinical presentations, parasite genotypes, gene expression, and immunological profiles of CL patients.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted from January 2019 to January 2022. Skin scraping was collected from the skin lesion and cultured. Parasite DNA was isolated and analysed for whole-genome sequencing by Illumina NovaSeq. Blood sample was collected from adult patients and controls in PAXgene tubes and analysed for host transcriptome sequencing. Plasma immune signatures were analysed by multiplex assay. Bioinformatics, GraphPad and Prism-9 were used to analyse the data.

Results: A total of 346 CL patients were recruited. The great majority (70.2%) of the lesions observed were of the localized type (LCL). Moreover, 20.8%, 1.4%, 5.8%, 1.7% of the CL patients presented with lesions of the Mucocutaneous CL, Diffused CL, mixed and recidivans type respectively. Seventy (93.3%) of the parasite isolates were related strains of L. aethiopica. Three, one, and one isolates were L. donovani, L. donovani-L.aethiopica hybrid, and L. tropica, respectively. A mixed cytokine profile was observed in the plasma. About 2607 and 27 human genes were differentially expressed between controls and CL patients, MCL patients, and LCL patients, respectively.

Conclusion: Leishmania aethiopica is the major parasite. There is no significant genetic difference between parasites isolated from different clinical forms. Host transcriptomics profile is different in different clinical forms.

Keywords: Cutaneous Leishmaniasis, Leishmania aethiopica, sequencing