Leishmaniasis is a neglected disease with a broad clinical spectrum which includes asymptomatic infection. A thorough diagnosis, able to distinguish and quantify Leishmania parasites in a clinical sample, constitutes a key step in choosing an appropriate therapy, making an accurate prognosis and performing epidemiological studies. Several molecular techniques have been shown to be effective in ...

Kinetoplast-mitochondrial vesicles from Leishmania tropica promastigotes were prepared by subjecting the particulate fractions from cell lysates to floatation ultracentrifugation in renografin gradients. They formed a distinct band with a density of 1.19 to 1.22 g/ml and appeared homogeneous as judged by phase microscopy. They showed succinate-cytochrome c reductase activity as well as the inco...

The taxon Trypanosoma cruzi, causative agent of Chagas disease, is composed of several discrete typing units (DTUs) named TcI-TcVI, and Tcbat. The history of the taxon T. cruzi is known, even though several controversial aspects remain as the relationships between TcIII and TcIV. We analyzed cloned T. cruzi stocks pertaining to the seven DTUs by filter hybridization tests of PCR amplicons from ...

Diagnostic tests for American tegumentary leishmaniasis were performed on blood samples of patients living in two endemic municipalities in the state of Pernambuco, Northeastern Brazil. DNA was extracted from 119 samples and used as template for polymerase chain reaction (PCR) analysis. The tests used primers specific for the kinetoplast mini-circle DNA (kDNA) of Leishmania braziliensis, a spec...

In recent studies on kinetoplast DNA, the mitochondrial DNA of trypanosomatids (1), we had insufficient quantitites for standard electron microscopy (EM) procedures. We therefore developed a new microtechnique for sample preparation. EM of DNA is commonly done by the Kleinschmidt method (2), in which the nucleic acid is first adsorbed to a positively charged protein monolayer formed at an air-w...