background : the goal of this study was to know the identity of leishmania species responsible of cutaneous leishmaniasis (cl) in fars province, southern iran. methods : five counties of shiraz, firouz abad, ghir-karzin, farashband and larestan were pros-pected. forty-four patients exhibiting cutaneous lesions were selected. samples collected on skin le-sions were examined both microscopically ...

In vivo studies have shown a major role for the alveolar macrophage in the killing of inhaled bacteria. This contrasted with earlier work which showed a preservation of phagocytic properties but a loss of bactericidal capacity when alveolar macrophages were studied in vitro. Recently, alveolar lining material (ALM) from rats has been shown to enhance the in vitro bactericidal capacity of alveol...

The in vitro growth of promastigote cells of Leishmania amazonensis was found to strongly depend on interactions among strains that differed in their pentamidine resistance. In particular, the growth of resistant strains was reduced when they shared the same environment with a less-resistant strain.

Leishmania infections involve an acute phase of replication within macrophages, typically associated with pathology. After recovery parasites persist for long periods, which can lead to severe disease upon reactivation. Unlike the role of host factors, parasite factors affecting persistence are poorly understood. Leishmania major lacking phosphoglycans (lpg2-) were unable to survive in sand fli...

Direct drug screening against the mammalian stage of Leishmania has been hampered by cost and the time consuming effort required to accomplish it. The ability to derive transgenic Leishmania expressing reporter genes opened up new possibilities for the development of drug screening tests. Further developments to standardize and gather multiple informations could now be envisionned. We will disc...

sand fly research has a long history in iran beginning with the work of adler, theodor and lourie in 1930 and followed by mesghali’s foundational taxonomic work on sand flies in 1943. since then, research has continued unabated throughout the country and official publications report the existence of at least 44 species of sand flies (26 of the genus phlebotomus and 18 of genus sergentomyia ) in...

it is well accepted that in experimental model of leishmania major infection, balb/c mice mount a th2 response and produce igg1 predominantly whereas c57bl/6mice enhance th1 response with the biased production of igg2a antibodies. therefore, screening for parasite antigens on the basis of reactivity with sera from infected susceptible or resistant mice might be used for the identification of th...

background: cutaneous leishmaniasis caused by l. major is an important public health problem in endemic areas. the aim of this study was to explore the therapeutic effect of microwave and or infrared radiation in the treatment of lesion induced in balb/c mice by l. major inoculation. methods: the footpad lesion was induced in balb/c mice by inoculation of l. major promastigotes subcutaneously. ...

partially purified antigenic fractions of leishmania major promastigotes were obtained by sodium dodecyl sulfate (sds-page) and electro-elution. three isolated protein fractions designated as frac tions (fr.) 1, 2, and 3 correspond to 40-60, 60-80, 80-100 kilodalton (kda) respectively. they were used for immunization of balb/c mice against leishmaniasis. the effects of these fractions on immune...

background: cationic immune stimulating complexes (pluscoms) are particulate antigen delivery systems. pluscoms consist of cationic immunostimulatory complexes (iscoms) derivatives and are able to elicit in vivo t cell responses against an antigen. objective: to evaluate the effects of pluscoms containing leishmaniamajor antigens (sla) on the type of immune response generated in the murine mode...