Objective
Canine infections by Leishmania infantum are extremely frequent in southern Europe, with prevalences of 5-7% of the total dog population. The reduction of infection rates in dogs is expected to lower the transmission in the natural reservoir, reducing the frequency of human exposure and eventually allowing the eradication of this life-threatening disease of dogs and humans. The response to chemotherapy is better when the dogs are diagnosed very early, procedure not available at present. Moreover, preliminary work seems to indicate that some dogs exposed to the parasite, in endemic areas, never develop the disease.
On these grounds, the project presented has two main objectives: development of an early diagnostic system and a vaccine for canine leishmaniasis. The development of a diagnostic kit will be accomplished through the identification and selection of antigens, in naturally and experimentally infected dogs, and the purification and/or cloning and expression of recombinant antigens. The development of a vaccine against canine leishmaniasis will start with the characterization of resistant dogs in endemic areas. This study, involving clinical, parasitological and immunological evaluations, will allow the identification of potentially protective antigens. Vaccination trials in dogs (mixed breed and pure breed animals) will be carried out with putative protective antigens purified (biochemically or from gen cloning) and DNA immunogens. After selection of immunization procedure, final phase of the project will include a field trial, in endemic areas, of the efficacy against a natural challenge by L. Infantum.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
- medical and health sciencesbasic medicineimmunologyimmunisation
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesgeneticsDNA
- agricultural sciencesanimal and dairy sciencedomestic animals
- medical and health sciencesbasic medicinepharmacology and pharmacypharmaceutical drugsvaccines
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Topic(s)
Call for proposal
Data not availableFunding Scheme
CSC - Cost-sharing contractsCoordinator
28040 MADRID
Spain