Adversarial relationship between the Leishmania lipophosphoglycan and protein kinase C of host macrophages

The dominant glycoconjugate on the cell surface of all Leishmania promastig otes is an unusual glycoconjugate named lipophosphoglycan (LPG). Its relati ve abundance, unique structure, and cellular location have implicated LPG a s an essential virulence determinant. One feature of LPG resides in its str ong inhibitory effect on the activity of protein kinase C (PKC) of host mac rophages. This article summarizes the evidence that LPG is inhibitory towar d PKC activation in macrophages and discusses the implication of such inhib ition on intramacrophage survival of the parasite.