New advances in the synthesis of Leishmania?s LPG and GIPLs constituents for vaccine and diagnostic test development

CAROLINA, TOULOUMDJIAN; ELEONORA ELHALEM; M. JULIETA, COMIN; LUCIA GANDOLFI DONADÍO

Buenos Aires

Simposio; 3rd Symposium on Argentinian Glycobiolgy; 2019

Universidad de San Martín

Leishmaniasis is a group of diseases caused by the trypanosomatid Leishmania. In Argentina, american tegumentary leishmaniasis is endemic. There is no human vaccine available, the existing treatments are expensive, have adverse effects and resistance cases have been reported. Hence, diagnostic tests to differentiate acutely diseased from clinically asymptomatic patients and fully protective vaccines against the diseases are highly desirable. Vaccines based on carbohydrate antigens are a viable option for parasitic vaccine development. Synthetic carbohydrate substructures of cell surface glycans have been a suitable tool to delineate the structure-function relationships as the basis of rational vaccine design. The LPG (lipophosphoglycan) and GIPLs (glycosylinositol phospholipids) of Leishmania are interesting targets because they are highly immunogenic and represent two of the most abundant surface glycans. Moreover, they contain galactofuranose (Galf), a sugar only found in nonmammalian species, making substructures with this moiety an interesting target for study. Here we report the new advances in the synthesis of three galactofuranosides constituents of GIPLs and LPG to asses their contribution to the immune response. The incorporation of an amino linker at the reducing end will serve to immobilize the sugars in a suitable surface to evaluate their immunogenicity through screening against infected sera.