b a ckground: zoonotic cutaneous leishmaniasis (zcl) is endemic in many parts of iran. recently its incidence isconsiderable in different parts of jahrom district, in fars province, southern iran. the aims of our study were to in- vestigate the prevalence of leishmania infection, and identify and characterize the   leishmania species present, among the rodents by molecular methods in a new ende...

background: the aim of this study was to assess leishmania infection in sand fly species from areas where leishmaniasis is endemic. this is important for prediction of the risk and expansion of the disease. methods: in this cross-sectional study we used a pcr-based method for detection of leishmania minicircle dna within individual sand flies from orzoieh, a new endemic leishmaniasis focus in s...

Zoonotic leishmaniosis due to Leishmania infantum is a vector-borne disease endemic in southern Europe and dogs are the main reservoir for this infection. Seasonal variations antibody titers species areas where phlebotomine vectors have seasonal patterns of activity important epidemiological, preventive clinical studies related with canine leishmaniosis. It has been suggested that cats, rabbits...

Macrophages (MF) are the final host cells for multiplication of the intracellular parasite Leishmania major (L. major). However, polymorphonuclear neutrophil granulocytes (PMN), not MF, are the first leukocytes that migrate to the site of infection and encounter the parasites. Our previous studies indicated that PMN phagocytose but do not kill L. major. Upon infection with Leishmania, apoptosis...

BACKGROUND Interleukin-32 (IL-32) is expressed in lesions of patients with American Tegumentary Leishmaniasis (ATL), but its precise role in the disease remains unknown. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS In the present study, silencing and overexpression of IL-32 was performed in THP-1-derived macrophages infected with Leishmania (Viannia) braziliensis or L. (Leishmania) amazonensis to investiga...

Lipid bodies (LB; lipid droplets) are cytoplasmic organelles involved in lipid metabolism. Mammalian LBs display an important role in host-pathogen interactions, but the role of parasite LBs in biosynthesis of prostaglandin F2α (PGF2α) has not been investigated. We report herein that LBs increased in abundance during development of Leishmania infantum chagasi to a virulent metacyclic stage, as ...

A 36 year old male was admitted in December 1997 to hospital with afternoon fever, malaise and hepatosplenomegaly. He also had a dry cough, dyspnoea and anaemia. Pneumonia caused by Pneumocystis carinii and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection were documented. The HIV infection was confirmed in 1997 with 290,000 virus copies. The patient had been in the Mexican State of Chiapas which is...

Leishmania amastigotes manipulate the activity of macrophages to favor their own success. However, very little is known about the role of innate recognition and signaling triggered by amastigotes in this host-parasite interaction. In this work we developed a new infection model in adult Drosophila to take advantage of its superior genetic resources to identify novel host factors limiting Leishm...

Leishmania spp. are intracellular parasites that cause lesions in the skin, mucosa, and viscera. We have previously shown that Leishmania infection reduces mononuclear phagocyte adhesion to inflamed connective tissue. In this study, we examined the role of adhesion molecules and chemokines in this process. Infection rate (r = -0.826, P = 0.003) and parasite burden (r = -0.917, P = 0.028) negati...

In infected mammalian cells, Leishmania parasites reside within specialized compartments called parasitophorous vacuoles (LPVs). We have previously shown that Retro-2, a member of a novel class of small retrograde pathway inhibitors caused reduced LPV sizes and lower parasite numbers during experimental L. mexicana sp. infections. The purpose of this study was to determine if structural analogs...