Leishmania ( Viannia) panamensis/Leishmania ( Leishmania) amazonensis—A Warning

Abstract

The parasite Leishmania (Viannia) panamensis causes local cutaneous lesions. The Laboratory of Infectious Disease Pathology of the University of Sao Paulo Medical School has been working with a strain of Leishmania (Viannia) panamensis, HSJD-1, characterized by isoenzyme at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, by W. Peters, and by hybridization, using probes for L. (V.) panamensis and L. (L.) amazonensis by P. de Carreira at the Research Center of Parasitic Disease, University of Panama. This strain, maintained through in vivo passage in BALB/c mice, by means of injecting purified amastigotes in the hind footpad as inoculum, showed an unexpected pattern of biological behavior with ulceration and metastatic lesion in mice tails after six months of infection. For this reason, we sent it for new characterization at the Belm Research Projects, Instituto Evandro Chagas, Belm, Brazil, where J.J. Shaw identified the strain as Leishmania (Leishmania) amazonensis by means of monoclonal antibodies. Further typing was done by S.R.B Uliana. and L.M. FloeterWinter at the Institute of Bioscience of the University of Sao Paulo, Department of Parasitology, Sao Paulo, Brazil, using specific hybridization probes for Leishmania (Leishmania) amazonensis (S8) and Viannia group (S10). The new identification was L. (L.) amazonensis.To rule out the possibility that contamination could be the cause of this new identification, another sample from the original frozen stock was also typed as L. (L.) amazonensis.Different species of Leishmania cause different, specific lesions: L. (V.) panamensis is known to cause strictly local lesion, whereas L. (L.) amazonensis also causes other forms of cutaneous leishmaniasis. In humans, L. (L.) amazonensis cause localized ulcerated cutaneous lesions and anergic diffuse cutaneous leishmaniasis. In experimental models, such as mice, the L. (L.) amazonensis may cause metastatic lesions.