Bacterial, Viral and Infectious Diseases

Leishmaniasis is a vector-borne disease that is caused by obligate intra-macrophage protozoa of the Leishmania species. Leishmaniasis can cause different clinical syndromes, including Cutaneous Leishmaniasis (CL) in which the patient generally presents with one or several ulcer(s) or nodule(s) on the skin, resulting from the infection of phagocytic cells located in the dermis. It often results into severe scar tissue in the skin. Most of the twelve million people infected with Leishmania worldwide are CL cases, a 1.5 million new cases occur annually. WHO has a program to develop new treatments for cutaneous leishmaniasis. This study establishes a proof-of-concept that a tattoo device can target intra-dermal drug delivery against Cutaneous Leishmaniasis (CL). The selected drug is Oleylphosphocholine (OlPC) formulated as liposomes, particles known to be prone to macrophage ingestion. First is shown that treatment of cultured Leishmania-infected macrophages with OlPC-liposomes results in a direct dose-dependent killing of intracellular parasites. Based on this, in vivo efficacy is demonstrated using a 10-day tattooing-mediated treatment in mice infected with L. major and L. mexicana. In both models this regimen results in rapid clinical recovery with complete regression of skin lesions by Day 28. Parasite counts and histopathology examination confirm high treatment efficacy at the parasitic level