Affiliations 

  • 1 Department of Medical Microbiology and Parasitology, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM Serdang Selangor, Malaysia
  • 2 Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, National Central University, Jhong-li, Taoyuan, Taiwan; Department of Botany and Microbiology, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; Department of Reproduction, National Research Institute for Child Health and Development, Tokyo, Japan
  • 3 Department of Biomedical Science, Faculty of Medicine and Health Science Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400, UPM, Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia
  • 4 Department of Agriculture, Food and Environment, University of Pisa, Via del Borghetto 80, 56124 Pisa, Italy
  • 5 Department of Medical Microbiology and Parasitology, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM Serdang Selangor, Malaysia; Genetics and Regenerative Medicine Research Centre, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia. Electronic address: sureshkudsc@gmail.com
Acta Trop, 2017 Dec;176:206-223.
PMID: 28823908 DOI: 10.1016/j.actatropica.2017.08.007

Abstract

Immuno-pathogenesis of leptospirosis can be recounted well by following its trail path from entry to exit, while inducing disastrous damages in various tissues of the host. Dysregulated, inappropriate and excessive immune responses are unanimously blamed in fatal leptospirosis. The inherent abilities of the pathogen and inabilities of the host were debated targeting the severity of the disease. Hemorrhagic manifestation through various mechanisms leading to a fatal end is observed when this disease is unattended. The similar vascular destructions and hemorrhage manifestations are noted in infections with different microbes in endemic areas. The simultaneous infection in a host with more than one pathogen or parasite is referred as the coinfection. Notably, common endemic infections such as leptospirosis, dengue, chikungunya, and malaria, harbor favorable environments to flourish in similar climates, which is aggregated with stagnated water and aggravated with the poor personal and environmental hygiene of the inhabitants. These factors aid the spread of pathogens and parasites to humans and potential vectors, eventually leading to outbreaks of public health relevance. Malaria, dengue and chikungunya need mosquitoes as vectors, in contrast with leptospirosis, which directly invades human, although the environmental bacterial load is maintained through other mammals, such as rodents. The more complicating issue is that infections by different pathogens exhibiting similar symptoms but require different treatment management. The current review explores different pathogens expressing specific surface proteins and their ability to bind with array of host proteins with or without immune response to enter into the host tissues and their ability to evade the host immune responses to invade and their affinity to certain tissues leading to the common squeal of hemorrhage. Furthermore, at the host level, the increased susceptibility and inability of the host to arrest the pathogens' and parasites' spread in different tissues, various cytokines accumulated to eradicate the microorganisms and their cellular interactions, the antibody dependent defense and the susceptibility of individual organs bringing the manifestation of the diseases were explored. Lastly, we provided a discussion on the immune trail path of pathogenesis from entry to exit to narrate the similarities and dissimilarities among various hemorrhagic fevers mentioned above, in order to outline future possibilities of prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of coinfections, with special reference to endemic areas.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.