Leishmaniasis is a worldwide uncontrolled parasitic disease due to the lack of effective drug and vaccine. To speed up effective drug development, we need powerful methods to rapidly assess drug effectiveness against the intracellular form of Leishmania in high throughput assays. Reporter gene technology has proven to be an excellent tool for drug screening in vitro. The effects of reporter pro...

An important area in the cell biology of intracellular parasitism is the customization of parasitophorous vacuoles (PVs) by prokaryotic or eukaryotic intracellular microorganisms. We were curious to compare PV biogenesis in primary mouse bone marrow-derived macrophages exposed to carefully prepared amastigotes of either Leishmania major or L. amazonensis. While tight-fitting PVs are housing one...

The recent adaptation of CRISPR Cas9 genome editing to Leishmania spp. has opened a new era in deciphering Leishmania biology. The method was recently improved using a PCR-based CRISPR Cas9 approach, which eliminated the need for cloning. This new approach, which allows high-throughput gene deletion, was successfully validated in L. mexicana and L. major. In this study, we validated the toolkit...

A monospecific polyclonal antibody obtained against a cysteine proteinase isolated from epimastigotes of Trypanosoma cruzi was used for the immunocytochemical localization of the protein by electron microscopy and to analyse the role played by cysteine proteinase in the process of T. cruzi-host cell interaction. Cytoplasmic structures that correspond to elements of the endosomal-lysosomal (rese...

This experimental study was conducted to assess of effectiveness of two nanogold concentrations against cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) caused by Iranian strain of Leishmania major in BALB/c mice model. Cutaneous lesions were experimentally induced by inoculation with Iranian Leishmania major promastigotes (MRHO/IR/75/ER) in 61 BALB/c mice. The infected mice were enrolled to four groups: intervent...

Intracellular amastigotes of Leishmania major produce 6 x 10(4) copies/cell of a lipophosphoglycan (LPG) that is structurally distinct from the LPG produced by the extracellular promastigote form of L. major, Leishmania donovani, and Leishmania mexicana (reviewed by McConville, M. J. (1991) Cell Biol. Int. Rep. 15, 779-798). L. major amastigote LPG is composed of a lysoalkyl phosphatidylinosito...

Promastigotes of Leishmania braziliensis panamensis were subjected to a heat shock transformation yielding an amastigote-like stage. During the process of conversion, the heat-induced differentiating form displayed an increase in infectivity (as determined by lesion size) accompanied by a total protein composition unlike that of the promastigote and a morphology resembling that of the amastigot...

The diagnosis of visceral leishmaniasis (VL) in humans and animal reservoir hosts is difficult, particularly in rural areas where the disease is endemic and laboratory facilities are limited. This study aimed to develop a latex agglutination test (LAT) for the rapid detection of anti-Leishmania antibodies against the A2 antigen derived from the amastigote form as well as those against crude ant...

Natural product antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) have been proposed as promising agents against the Leishmania species, insect vector borne protozoan parasites causing the neglected tropical disease leishmaniasis. However, recent studies have shown that the mammalian pathogenic amastigote form of L. mexicana, a causative agent of cutaneous leishmaniasis, is resistant to the amphibian-derived tempo...