NCM 2022: Identification of Leishmania infantum epidemiological, drug resistance and pathogenicity biomarkers
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- Leishmania infantum is a protist parasite and causative agent of leishmaniasis, endemic to many countries world-wide, per example the Mediterranean basin.
- Emerging drug-resistant L. infantum is one of the most relevant neglected tropical disease, as it is responsible for 12M infections w/w and more than 25,000 deaths.
- It possesses a genome of 32 Mb distributed in 36 chromosomes and a complex network of maxi- and minicircle kinetoplasts (functionally similar to mitochondria).
- Its genome is structurally complex, with frequent rearrangements and aneuploidies. Such changes in copy number variation (CNV) occur as a result of environment adaptation and can be potentially used as genetic biomarkers to create a genetic resistance profile.