Upon their internalization by macrophages, Leishmania promastigotes inhibit phagolysosome biogenesis. The main factor responsible for this inhibition is the promastigote surface glycolipid lipophosphoglycan (LPG). This glycolipid has a profound impact on the phagosome, causing periphagosomal accumulation of F-actin and disruption of phagosomal lipid microdomains. Functionally, this LPG-mediated...

Leishmania are protozoan parasites that cause several human diseases called leishmaniases, which can display very different clinical aspects (Peters and Killick-Kendrick, 1987b). The life cycle of Leishmania involves two kinds of hosts: dipteran insects (sandflies) and several mammals, in which they adopt a motile, flagellated, promastigote form and a non-motile, amastigote form with a very sho...

Extracts of seven medicinal plants used specifically against cutaneous leishmaniasis in the Madre de Dios region of Peru were evaluated in vitro against promastigote and axenic amastigote forms of Leishmania amazonensis. One of them showed interesting leishmanicidal activities (IC(50)=5 microg/ml in amastigotes). Bio-guided isolation of the stem bark's ethanol extract of Himatanthus sucuuba (Sp...

Cutaneous leishmaniasis is one of the most important parasitic diseases, which are endemic in different parts of Iran. Leishmania major and L. tropica are the primary causative agents of this disease. The aim of the present study was to detect the multiple forms of L. major in lung. Ppromastigotes of L. major at stationary phase were injected to BALB/c mice. After 60 days, the different forms o...