RESEARCH Two biochemically distinc s t

Full list of author information is available at the end of the articleBackground Leishmaniases are a spectrum of diseases widely distrib-uted in the Americas [1]. In Brazil, Leishmania braziliensis and Leishmania infantum are the causative agents of cutaneous (CL) and visceral leishmaniasis (VL), respectively [2]. At the early steps of infection in the verte-brate host, the parasite must survive the production of inflammatory mediators such as reactive oxygen inter-mediates (ROI), reactive nitrogen intermediates (RNI), and cytokines [3,4]. In trypanosomatids, many GPI-anchored molecules are known to be closely associated with cell signaling, acting as agonists and second messengers in response to cytokines and other stimuli [5-9]. In Leishmania, lipophosphoglycan (LPG) has been extensively studied and is known to be a multifunctional virulence factor with functions that include: attachment to the sand fly vector midgut [10], attachment and entry into macrophages [11], induction of neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) [12], inhibition of protein kinase C (PKC) [13,14], retardation of phagosome maturatio