Parasites, Hosts and Diseases

The Korea Society for Parasitology and Tropical Medicine (대한기생충학·열대의학회)
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Effects of combined therapy with thalidomide and glucantime on leishmaniasis induced by Leishmania major in BALB/c mice

  • SOLGI Ghassem (Department of Immunology, Faculty of Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences) ;
  • KARIMINIA Amina (Department of Immunology, Pasteur Institute of Iran) ;
  • ABDI Khossro (Department of Medicinal Chemistry, Faculty of Pharmacy, Tehran University of Medical Sciences) ;
  • DARABI Majid (Department of Medicinal Chemistry, Faculty of Pharmacy, Tehran University of Medical Sciences) ;
  • GHAREGHOZLOO Behnaz (Immunology Laboratory, School of Para-Medical Sciences, Iran University of Medical Sciences)
  • Published : 2006.03.01
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Abstract

For treating Leishmania major infection in BALB/c mice, we used thalidomide in conjunction with glucantime. Groups of mice were challenged with $5{\time}10^3$ metacyclic promastigotes of L. major subcutaneously. A week after the challenge, drug treatment was started and continued for 12 days. Thalidomide was orally administrated 30 mg/kg/day and glucantime was administrated intraperitoneally (200 mg/kg/day). It was shown that the combined therapy is more effective than single therapies with each one of the drugs since the foot pad swelling in the group of mice received thalidomide and glucantime was significantly decreased (0.9 :t 0.2 mm) compared to mice treated with either glucantime, thalidomide, or carrier alone (1.2 :t 0.25, 1.4 :t 0.3, and 1.7 :t 0.27 mm, respectively). Cytokine study showed that the effect of thalidomide was not dependent on IL-12; however, it up-regulated IFN-yand down-regulated IL-10 production. Conclusively, thalidomide seems promising as a conjunctive therapy with antimony in murine model of visceral leishmaniasis.

Keywords

References

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