b a ckground: zoonotic cutaneous leishmaniasis (zcl) is endemic in many parts of iran. recently its incidence isconsiderable in different parts of jahrom district, in fars province, southern iran. the aims of our study were to in- vestigate the prevalence of leishmania infection, and identify and characterize the   leishmania species present, among the rodents by molecular methods in a new ende...

Protozoan parasites of Leishmania spp. invade macrophages as promastigotes and differentiate into replicative amastigotes within parasitophorous vacuoles. Infection of inbred strains of mice with Leishmania major is a well-studied model of the mammalian immune response to Leishmania species, but the ultrastructure and biochemical properties of the parasitophorous vacuole occupied by this parasi...

Leishmaniasis is a protozoan parasitic disease that affects 12 million people worldwide. The first line choice for the treatment of this disease is antimonial drugs. In the endemic regions, resistance to this class of drugs is a major impediment to treatment. Microbes often become resistant to drugs by mutation or down-regulation of uptake systems, but the uptake system for the antimonial drugs...

conclusions the widespread distribution of l. major parasites in human suggests not only t. indica was the main reservoir but also other rodents and mammalian hosts might be the reservoir hosts of zcl in the region. molecular and phylogenetic analyses confirmed the strength of haplotype variation maintaining the circulation of leishmania species in their reservoir hosts. results leishmania majo...

Both zoonotic and anthroponotic cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) caused by L. major and L. tropica, respectively, are endemic in different parts of Iran. This study was performed to investigate the new changes in epidemiological pattern of CL, and to identify the species of Leishmania and the strains of L. major isolated from different endemic areas of Iran. Seventy-two isolates from 245 samples co...

BACKGROUND Infection with Leishmania results in a broad spectrum of pathologies where L. infantum and L. donovani cause fatal visceral leishmaniasis and L. major causes destructive cutaneous lesions. The identification and characterization of Leishmania virulence genes may define the genetic basis for these different pathologies. METHODS AND FINDINGS Comparison of the recently completed L. ma...

BACKGROUND Leishmaniasis is an important public health disease in many developing countries as well in Iran. The main objective of this study was to investigate on leishmania infection of wild caught sand flies in an endemic focus of disease in Esfarayen district, north east of Iran. METHODS Sand flies were collected by sticky papers and mounted in a drop of Puri's medium for species identifi...

Protective immunity against Leishmania major is provided by s.c. immunization with a low dose of L. major promastigotes or with dihydrofolate-thymidylate synthase gene locus (DHFR-TS) gene knockout L. major organisms. Whether these vaccine strategies will protect against infection with other Leishmania species that elicit distinct immune responses and clinical syndromes is not known. Therefore,...

Leishmaniasis is caused by parasitic protozoa of the genus Leishmania. Cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) is a complex disease with wide spectrum of clinical manifestations. In order to identify leishmania species causing CL in Isfahan by a definite molecular technique (PCR method), this study was undertaken over 2010- 2011. 124 Patients with suspicious lesion of Leishmaniasis and positive direct sme...

Considering the different clinical symptoms of leishmaniasis in Iran, and the wide distribution of its agent and the little information in this regard, this study was performed to characterize the responsible variants using monoclonal antibodies. A total of 156 isolates of Leishmania from patients with cutaneous leishmaniasis and one isolate from rat were characterized using the standard monoc...