In a previous work we demonstrated that diarylheptanoids extracted from Centrolobium sclerophyllum are very active against Leishmania amazonensis promastigotes. In order to continue our studies with these class of compounds, we decided to evaluate the activity of several diarylheptanoids derived from curcumin (diferuloyl methane) against the extracellular form (promastigotes) of L. amazonensis....

Surfactant protein A (SP-A) is a hydrophilic pulmonary protein belonging to the collectin family, involved in lung homeostasis, the regulation of host defenses and inflammation. The present study addresses the activity of SP-A against promastigotes and amastigotes of Leishmania amazonensis and its cytotoxicity for host cells. SP-A exhibited similar activity against both parasite forms, with an ...

A new liquid culture medium prepared with chemicals that can be obtained economically and commercially was tested in in vitro cultivation of Leishmania promastigotes to obtain a large number of organisms to use in serological studies. The number of Leishmania infantum and Leishmania tropica promastigotes taken from Novy-MacNeal-Nicolle (NNN) medium reached 1 x 10(7)/ml at the end of the 8th day...

In this study we examined enhancement effects of Artemisinin plus Glucantime and shark cartilage extract, on promastigotes and amastigotes of L.infantum in in vitro condition.The toxicity of artemisinin, glucantime and shark cartilage extract on the L. infantum promastigotes and amastigote-infected macrophages was evaluated using MTT assay. The role of these drugs in inducing apoptosis in proma...

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...

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...

stage-specifci developmental forms of lesihmania major promastigotes were grown in vitro. procyclic and metacyclic promastigotes were cultured and separated by peanut agglutinin. the axenic amastigote form were prepared by culturing the promastigotes in acidic medium at 35c.these three forms of parasites were used as antigens to study cytokine production in whole blood culture of healthy indivi...

Materials and methods: Th e eff ects of HBO on Leishmania tropica promastigote and amastigote forms were studied at a pressure of 2.5 atmosphere absolute (ata). We examined the cytotoxic eff ect of HBO on promastigotes using the trypan blue exclusion test and the 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) dye-reduction assay. To investigate the eff ects of HBO treatment ...

Immune sera obtained from either BALB/c mice (susceptible) at 7 weeks, or C57BL/6 mice (resistant), at 7 weeks after infection with L. m. amazonensis, were effective in increasing internalization of homologous promastigotes into starch-induced peritoneal macrophages (from both mouse strains). Both the internalization enhancing effect and the levels of anti-leishmanial antibody (ELISA) were remo...