natural infection of sand flies sergentomyia dentata in ardebil to lizard leishmania

objective: an entomological survey was carried out for leishmania vector incrimination of sand flies in northwestern iran. materials and methods: among other specimens, 358 sand flies belong to the sergentomyia genus were tested for leptomonad infection using semi-nested pcr method as well as sequence anlalysis of its-rdna fragment. results: results of semi-nested pcr against kietoplast dna showed reptile leptomonad infection in two specimens of s.dentata. the its2 sequence analysis of the specimens revealed 76% identity with those of leishmania (sauroleishmania) adleri of genbank. however, further studies need to clarify the species identity of the leptomonads. interestingly, blood meal analysis of the sand flies determined an s.sintoni specimen with mammalian hemoglobin. conclusion: this reptile related sauroleishmania parasites lacks the lipophosphoglican (lpg) necessary for entrance to human phagocytes cells, and hence are not human pathogen. however, the glycoinositophospholipid (gipl) molecules of this parasite reacts with sera of kala-azar patients and may cause false positive scores in sero-epidemiological surveys for kala-azar. sauroleishmania can be transmitted to human by infected bite of some sergentomyia subgenera that show intermediate