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: visceral leishmaniasis (vl) has strong links with poverty, substantial medical and veterinary impacts. this review aimed to focus in studies published during 1994-2016 on vl in southeastern iran. methods : the present review is based on expert knowledge and historical studies published during the past 23 yr (1994-2016) on vl in southeastern iran. in addition, related literature foun...

this study aimed to evaluate freeze-dried sera as an alternative to non-freeze dried for detection of anti-leishmania infantum antibodies over the course of 11 months using the direct agglutination test (dat).altogether, 60 serum samples (30 from humans and 30 from dogs) were collected from various geographical locations in iran. all the collected sera were pooled and each pooled serum sample c...

A series of 2277 Leishmania strains from Old World visceral leishmaniasis foci, isolated between 1973 and 2008, were studied by isoenzyme analysis. The strains were obtained from humans, domestic and wild carnivores, rodents and phlebotomine sandflies, and came from 36 countries. In all, 60 different zymodemes were identified and clustered by a phenetic analysis into 3 different groups correspo...

We report the case of a 66 year-old woman who presented nodular skin lesions on her back and upper extremities. Biopsy revealed amastigotes that were identified as Leishmania infantum-chagasi by PCR. Evaluation also showed hepatomegaly and pulmonary nodules. Treatment with amphotericin B led to complete resolution of skin lesions.

Visceral leishmaniasis (VL) is a parasitic infectious disease that causes significant morbidity and mortality in the tropical and subtropical regions of the world. Although infections with visceralizing Leishmania may be asymptomatic, factors such as undernutrition increase the likelihood of progressing to clinical disease. Protein malnutrition, the most deleterious cause of malnutrition in dev...

BACKGROUND Visceral leishmaniasis caused by the protozoan Leishmania infantum is a zoonotic, life threatening parasitic disease. Domestic dogs are the main peridomestic reservoir, and allopurinol is the most frequently used drug for the control of infection, alone or in combination with other drugs. Resistance of Leishmania strains from dogs to allopurinol has not been described before in clini...

BACKGROUND Leishmania tropica is a genetically divergent species. Amplification of entire internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region of L. tropica isolates obtained from Bam district, one of the well known focus of anthroponotic cutaneous leishmaniasis (ACL) in Iran, revealed a double-band pattern in agarose gel electrophoresis. This study explains how this pattern occurs. METHODS Twenty seven ...

BACKGROUND While CD40L is typically a membrane glycoprotein expressed on activated T cells and platelets that binds and activates CD40 on the surface on antigen presenting cells, a soluble derivative (sCD40L) that appears to retain its biological activity after cleavage from cell membrane also exists. We recently reported that sCD40L is associated with clinical resolution of visceral leishmania...