TY - JOUR TI - Intranasal delivery of LaAg vaccine improves immunity of aged mice against visceral Leishmaniasis AV - public Y1 - 2024/04/25/ VL - 252 N1 - This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher?s terms and conditions. ID - discovery10187327 N2 - There are no approved vaccines yet for human visceral leishmaniasis (VL), the most severe form of the leishmaniasis clinical manifestations that is fatal in over 95% of untreated cases. It is well-accepted that immunological changes during ageing have deleterious impact on the efficacy of vaccines and response to infections. In this work, we compared the response of young and aged mice to intranasal vaccination with killed Leishmania amazonensis promastigote antigens (LaAg) that were then challenged with L. infantum infection, a species that causes visceral leishmaniasis. Intranasal vaccination with LaAg induced a similar reduction in parasitism and hepatosplenomegaly in both young and aged mice compared to their unvaccinated counterparts. Following infection, there was also a less prominent inflammatory profile particularly in the vaccinated aged group, with lower production of TNF-? and nitrite compared to the respective unvaccinated group. Interestingly, the LaAg intranasal vaccination promoted increased production of IFN-? that was observed in both young- and aged vaccinated groups. Additionally, CD4+ and CD8+ T cells from both vaccinated groups presented decreased expression of the inhibitory receptors PD-1 and KLRG1 compared to their unvaccinated controls. Interestingly, a strong positive correlation was observed between the expression of both inhibitory receptors PD-1 and KLRG1 and parasitism, which was more conspicuous in the unvaccinated-aged mice than in the others. Overall, this study helps define new strategies to improve vaccine effectiveness and provides a perspective for prophylactic alternatives against leishmaniasis. SN - 0001-706X UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.actatropica.2024.107125 PB - Elsevier BV JF - Acta Tropica KW - Ageing KW - Intranasal vaccine KW - Leishmania amazonensis KW - Visceral leishmaniasis KW - antigen A1 - Salgado, Caio Loureiro A1 - Corea, Andrés Felipe Mendéz A1 - Covre, Luciana Polaco A1 - Fonseca-Martins, Alessandra Marcia A1 - Falqueto, Aloisio A1 - Guedes, Herbert Leonel DE Matos A1 - Rossi-Bergmann, Bartira A1 - Gomes, Daniel Cláudio Oliviera ER -