Chimpanzees used for medical research shed light on the pathoetiology of leprosy

Leprosy is a chronic infectious disorder caused by Mycobacterium leprae, which mainly affects skin and peripheral nerves. It is classified as either paucibacillary or multibacillary based upon clinical manifestations and slit-skin smear results. It is speculated that leprosy develops after a long latency period following M. leprae infection. However, the actual time of infection and the duration of latency have never been proven in human patients. To date, four cases of spontaneous leprosy have been reported in chimpanzees who were caught in West Africa in infancy and used for medical research in the USA and Japan. One of these chimpanzees was extensively studied in Japan, and single-nucleotide polymorphism analysis for the M. leprae genome was conducted. This analysis revealed that the chimpanzee was infected with M. leprae during infancy in West Africa and the pathognomonic signs of leprosy appeared after at least 30 years of incubation. Analysis of leprosy in chimpanzees can contribute not only to medical research but also to the understanding of the pathoetiology of leprosy.