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REVIEW article

Front. Immunol.
Sec. Parasite Immunology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2024.1488590
This article is part of the Research Topic Ironome: A Still Untapped Frontier View all articles

Cutaneous Leishmaniasis and Iron Metabolism: Current Insights and Challenges

Provisionally accepted
Aicha Assouab Aicha Assouab 1Ayyoub Kihel Ayyoub Kihel 1Myriam Rouahi Myriam Rouahi 2Mathilde Larribau Mathilde Larribau 2Zoubida Karim Zoubida Karim 2Khadija Akarid Khadija Akarid 1*
  • 1 University of Hassan II Casablanca, Casablanca, Morocco
  • 2 Université Toulouse III Paul Sabatier, Toulouse, Occitanie, France

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Leishmaniasis is a vector-borne parasitic infection induced by protozoa of the genus Leishmania. The disease spectrum ranges from skin lesions to visceral leishmaniasis, which is fatal if untreated. The cutaneous leishmaniasis is characterized by a clinical polymorphism of lesions with a broad range of severity ranging from a self-limited lesion to multiple disfiguring lesions stigmatizing the patient for life. Although iron is required for several process of Leishmania infection including survival, growth and virulence, the number of studies on host iron metabolism during this infection remains limited.Iron homeostasis in the body is finely regulated by hepcidin, a hyposideremic peptide highly expressed in the liver. In infectious contexts, hepcidin plays additionally an antimicrobial role, acting through various mechanisms such as retaining iron in tissues, modulating the immune response, and operating as a defensin against gram-negative bacteria. This review mainly summarizes the most important interconnections between iron metabolism, hepcidin and leishmaniasis. A deeper understanding of iron metabolism in this context could help in developing innovative treatment strategies that target the parasite while simultaneously reinforcing host defenses.

    Keywords: Iron, Metabolism, hepcidin, Leishmania, cutaneous leishmaniasis

    Received: 02 Sep 2024; Accepted: 12 Nov 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Assouab, Kihel, Rouahi, Larribau, Karim and Akarid. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Khadija Akarid, University of Hassan II Casablanca, Casablanca, Morocco

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