Leishmania infection and virulence

Leishmaniasis is among the most important infectious diseases of the develo ping world. With the advent of effective culture conditions for the various stages of the life cycle, together with state of the art biochemical, geno mics, and reverse genetic approaches, it has been possible to identify viru lence factors required for the infection process. Several of these virulenc e factors are discussed within including lipophosphoglygan, A2, cysteine pr oteinases, and gp63.