background: various prokaryotic and eukaryotic expression systems have been developed for the production of recombinant proteins. in the present study, we used a new protein expression system based on the iranian lizard leishmania, a trypanosomatid protozoan as a host, for the expression of lpg3 gene from leishmania infantum (l.infantum). methods: the lpg3 gene was cloned in the expression cass...

background : there are several methods, such as vaccination, to control visceral leishmaniasis. although there is no efficient vaccine, it seem dna vaccination with stimulates both cellular and humoral immunity apparently is the best way. the aim of this study was cloning and expression of lack gene, a 36kd protein, as a can-didate protein for vaccination against iranian l.infantum. methods: ir...

Background: Leishmania is an intracellular protozoan parasite that enters and reproduces in macrophage cells. Macrophages are important immune cells phagocyte many pathogens such as bacteria, fungi, parasites spp. but incapable of killing this parasite, living the phagosomes infected macrophages, multiplying, resulting divesting macrophages appearance lesions. Many present drugs for treatment h...

Visceral leishmaniasis (VL) is a serious and fatal disease. Therapeutic drugs are toxic and non-sterilizing. The etiological agents Leishmania infantum and Leishmania donovani cause active and asymptomatic diseases. Effective drugs to treat VL exist but unfortunately, post-treatment relapses are common. Little is known why drugs are non-sterilizing or how these intracellular pathogens can escap...

Leishmania infantum and Leishmania donovani both pertain to the L. (L.) donovani complex. The status of certain strains is questioned in the literature and there are no reliable discriminative markers to identify them. Molecular tools are needed to (i) identify diagnostic markers and (ii) to allow a better understanding of phylogenetic relationships. We have developed a PCR based on cysteine pr...

Background: Heat shock protein 70 (HSP70) is present in all organisms studied so far, and is a major immunogen in infections caused by pathogens including Leishmania spp. Objective: The aim of this study was to clone and express HSP70 from L. infantum strain MCAN/IR/96/LON-49 and evaluate antibody response against HSP70 in visceral leishmaniasis (VL). Methods: The L. infantum HSP70 gene segment...

Background: The causative agent of visceral leishmaniasis (VL) in Iran is Leishmania infantum (L. infantum) (Mediterranean type) and its major reservoir host is the dog. Ob-jective: To compare the serological methods including direct agglutination test (DAT), indirect immunofluorescent-antibody test (IFA) and enzyme-linked immunosorbent as-say (ELISA) for serodiagnosis of endemic strain of L. i...

Leishmania infantum is a protozoan parasite that is phagocytized by human macrophages. The host macrophages kill the parasite by generating oxidative compounds that induce DNA damage. We have identified, purified and biochemically characterized a DNA polymerase θ from L. infantum (LiPolθ), demonstrating that it is a DNA-dependent DNA polymerase involved in translesion synthesis of 8oxoG, abasic...

On the basis of partial amplification of a cloned fragment of kDNA of Leishmania infantum which is specific for this species, we developed a PCR-ELISA technique which avoids the problems associated with classical diagnostic techniques. This technique was tested on 33 L. infantum strains from 19 different zymodemes, which were recognized equally. It was also used on human and canine clinical sam...