Correction to: Leishmania and Their Vertebrate Host Cells

Parasites of the genus Leishmania are the causative agents of a spectrum of diseases collectively known as Leishmaniasis. These protists present two distinct evolutive forms in their life cycle, the extracellular promastigote forms, which live and multiply inside the digestive tract of the sand fly invertebrate vector, and the amastigote forms which infect vertebrate hosts and live intracellularly within membranous compartments named parasitophorous vacuoles. In vertebrate hosts, notably in mammals, the intracellular amastigotes are mainly found inside macrophages during the chronic phase of the disease. However, other cell types have been found infected by Leishmania spp. both during the acute and the chronic phase of infection. These parasites were long considered as passive players during cell invasion, relying only on the phagocytic abilities of phagocytes to invade host cells and to establish the intracellular phase of their life cycle. However, several studies have also detected the intracellular amastigotes within non-phagocytic cells. The importance of parasite infection and persistence in cells other than macrophages, such as neutrophils, dendritic cells, fibroblasts, muscle cells, epithelial cells and others in the biology of these pathogenic protists remains poorly explored. This chapter will discuss the several cell types found infected by Leishmania spp. amastigotes and their possible involvement in the biology of these parasites.