La respuesta inmunitaria adaptativa en la infección crónica por Trypanosoma cruzi

Trypanosoma cruzi infection causes Chagas disease, which presents an acute phase where the activation of the immune system can help to control the parasite. However, the parasite persists at a low level leading to a chronic phase where 70% of the infected individuals remain asymptomatic, and the others have tissue involvement, mainly a chronic inflammatory cardiomyopathy. During the infection process, the immune response plays an important role in protection, but it has also been associated with pathogenesis, especially during the chronic phase. The studies carried out by the Chagas disease research group from Universidad de los Andes and the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Colombia, have been focused on dissecting the adaptive immune response induced against T. cruzi. Here we summarize and analyze the results of the evaluation of the humoral immune response against the KMP-11 protein from the parasite. We also describe the cellular immune response against T. cruzi in peripheral blood of patients with chronic Chagas heart disease. We evaluated the possible role of peptide-specific antibodies and the percentage of peripheral blood antigen-specific lymphocytes and their surface markers using a nine amino acids peptide from the KMP-11 protein termed TcTLE.