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Con il presente lavoro, ci si propone di comprendere il ruolo dei miRNA e il loro possibile coinvolgimento nella modulazione della risposta immunitaria in modelli cellulari macrofagici infettati con differenti specie di Leishmania. Inoltre, capire in quali pathway e quali geni vengono regolati dai miRNA identificati in questo studio permetterà a sua volta di identificare nuovi geni coinvolti nella risposta all’infezione. I risultati ottenuti dal presente studio permetteranno di condurre un'analisi dei miRNA che sono differenzialmente regolati durante l'infezione di Leishmania in modelli sperimentali in vitro, in grado di sovvertire la risposta immunitaria dell'ospite per comprenderne il loro coinvolgimento durante l'interazione ospite-parassita. Un ulteriore risultato sarà il sequenziamento, l’analisi dei dati e il deposito in GeneBank delle sequenze dei miRNA di Leishmania.

In recent decades feline leishmaniosis (FeL) has become an emerging disease, also in non-endemic areas for the canine infection. This study updates the epidemiological status for FeL in cats in northern Italy and compares results with previous studies of the same feline population. Co-infections with feline retroviruses FIV and Field were also investigated. Stray, shelter and owned cats from different cities in the Lombardy region of northern Italy, were prospectively randomly sampled between January 2020 and May 2021. A total of 255 cats were tested for L. infantum: 240/255 for antibodies by IFAT and 234/255 and 198/255 for Leishmania DNA by PCR on whole blood and lymph nodes, respectively. Rapid ELISA test was used to detect FIV or FeLV infection. Overall, 26/255 (10.2%) cats tested positive for L. infantum: in 8/26 cats Leishmania DNA was found in popliteal lymph nodes (Leishmania/ml range from 15 to 60), 6/26 were PCR positive on whole blood (Leishmania/ml range from 5 to 80) and 15/26 IFAT seropositive at titers ranging from 1:80 to 1:320. Two Leishmania infected cats were also FIV+FeLV coinfected, another was FIV positive and one was FeLV positive. A high prevalence of FeL was found in a non-endemic area of northern Italy, with an increasing trend in infection rates., C.U.P. H75H20000150001. Ministero della Salute, Ricerca Corrente IZS SI 08/20