Background Leishmania tropica, the causative agent of anthroponotic cutaneous leishmaniasis (ACL), and Leishmania major, which causes zoonotic cutaneous leishmaniasis (ZCL), are endemic in Iran. Methods Cross-sectional study was designed to identify Leishmania species in cutaneous leishmaniasis patients who referred to Mashhad Health Centers from 2013 to 2014 using ITS-PCR-RFLP technique. Fir...

Späth, G. F. and Beverley, S. M. 2001. A lipophosphoglycan-independent method for isolation of infective Leishmania metacyclic promastigotes by density gradient centrifugation. Experimental Parasitology 99, 97–103. At the end of their growth in the sand fly, Leishmania parasites differentiate into the infective metacyclic promastigote stage, which is transmitted to the mammalian host. Thus, in ...

Comparative genome analysis of recently sequenced Leishmania (L.) donovani was unexplored so far. The present study deals with the complete scanning of L. (L.) donovani genome revealing its interspecies variations. 60 distinctly present genes in L. (L.) donovani were identified when the whole genome was compared with Leishmania (L.) infantum. Similarly 72, 159, and 265 species specific genes we...

American Tegumentary Leishmaniasis is caused by parasites of the genus Leishmania, and causes significant health problems throughout the Americas. In Panama, Leishmania parasites are endemic, causing thousands of new cases every year, mostly of the cutaneous form. In the last years, the burden of the disease has increased, coincident with increasing disturbances in its natural sylvatic environm...

Leishmania are obligate intracellular vector-borne parasites that cause significant morbidity and mortality in many countries worldwide. There are several species of the parasite which vary according to geographical location and cause a variety of clinical syndromes ranging from self-limiting cutaneous lesions to potentially fatal infection of the viscera. The disease manifested is dependent on...

Protozoans of the Leishmania genus are the etiological agents of a wide spectrum of diseases commonly known as leishmaniases. Lipid organization of the plasma membrane of the parasite may mimic the lipid organization of mammalian apoptotic cells and play a role in phagocytosis and parasite survival in the mammal host. Here, we analyzed the phospholipid dynamics in the plasma membrane of both th...

The eco-epidemiology of American cutaneous leishmaniasis (ACL) is driven by animal reservoir species that are a source of infection for sand flies that serve as vectors infecting humans with Leishmania spp parasites. The emergence and re-emergence of this disease across Latin America calls for further studies to identify reservoir species associated with enzootic transmission. Here, we present ...

Two oligonucleotide primers Lsmc1 and Lsmv1 derived from the conserved and the variable region of a major class kinetoplast DNA (kDNA) minicircle (pLURkE3) of Leishmania strain UR6 were used for the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in order to amplify a 461-bp fragment from the kDNAs of different Leishmania species. These primers amplify the specific fragment from the kDNAs of cutaneous species ...

Sequence analysis of Leishmania (Viannia) kDNA minicircles and analysis of multiple sequence alignments of the conserved region (minirepeats) of five distinct minicircles from L. (V.) braziliensis species with corresponding sequences derived from other dermotropic leishmanias indicated the presence of a sub-genus specific sequence. An oligonucleotide bearing this sequence was designed and used ...

We compared the in vitro growth of promastigotes from two Leishmania species in TC-100 and Schneider media. Leishmania (Leishmania) amazonensis replication rates were similar in both tissue culture media and reached maximum rates by 48 h. In contrast Leishmania (Viannia) braziliensis growth was significantly greater in TC-100 but maximum rates were achieved by 96 h. Folic acid appears to be the...