Table 1. The recommendation of various animal models with Leishmania parasite–animal models for discovery of new anti-leishmanial drugs, based on the evidence and interpretation of the studies reviewed in this paper.
| Leishmania Parasite | Animal Model | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rodent models | Nonhuman primate models | ||||||||||
| BALB/c | CBA | C57BL/6 | CsS-16 | Humanized mice | golden hamster (Mesocricetus auratus) | Yucatan deer mouse (Peromyscus yucatanicus) | vervet monkey (Chlorocebus pygerythrus) | Sykes monkey (Cercopithecus albogularis) | rhesus monkey (Macaca mulatta) | tufted Capuchin (Cebus apella) | |
| L. major | Th2/Th1. Visceral disease and death | Th1>Th2. Self-cure | +++, Th1>Th2. Self-cure | ++, Develop cellular components of the human immune system; T, B and NK cells. | +++, Self-healing lesion. IFn-g production by circulating cells does not correlate with cure. | ++, Self-healing lesions. | +++, Self-healing immune responses similar to humans | ||||
| L. tropica | No lesion. Slow growth | ++, Slow developing lesion | +++, Females develop large skin lesions. CCL3/CCL5 | ||||||||
| L. aethiopica | No growth | ++, Self-healing lesions | |||||||||
| L. mexicana | ++, Large nonhealing lesions | ++, Single small lesion | |||||||||
| L. amazonensis | ++, Th2, Lesions | +++, Develop severe lesions | Th1. Small chronic lesions | ++, Self-healing lesions. | ++, Self-healing lesions, Th1/Th2 | ||||||
| L. braziliensis | ++, Small self-healing lesions. Th1 response | Small nonulcerated lesions | +++, Nonhealing ulcerated lesions | +++, Self-healing lesions. Th1 response | |||||||
| L. panamenisis | ++, Self-healing lesions. Th1/Th2 | ||||||||||
| L. guyanensis | ++, Metastatic lesions | ||||||||||
+++ = Strong evidence for recommendation
++ = More research needed before recommendation
Blank boxes confer to lack of sufficient information/data