Makerere University, partner in the EVI-led PREV_PKDL project, is participating in the WorldLeish7 congress taking place from August 1st to 6th, 2022 in Cartagena, Colombia, with a poster presentation titled “A Systematic review on the use of tetramers for isolation of antigen-specific b cells among leishmaniasis-infected individuals in Africa”. The authors are presenting the main findings of this review, which aimed to determine the extent of the use of tetramers as a tool to identify antigen specific B cells among leishmaniasis infected individuals. Leishmaniasis-specific response assessment continues to be challenging, particularly in settings with limited resources in Africa. The role of specific B cells in leishmaniasis is still not fully understood. This has led to the need for development of tetramers to improve sensitivity of detection of antigen-specific B cells. Using predefined key words together with Boolean operators, Makerere University partners created search strings in the PubMed NLM advanced search. Twenty-one articles containing information about 5 different antigens were included in the review. The Leishmania antigens identified, existed as tetramers and these were used to identify specific CD4+T cells. These findings point toward the need to further expand the use of tetramer techniques to characterise B cell responses in L. donovani infection. This is particularly important in determining potential candidate antigens for vaccine designs.
