Population structures of Leishmania infantum and Leishmania tropica the causative agents of kala-azar in Southwest Iran

Mohammad Amin Ghatee,Hossein Mirhendi,Walter R Taylor,Massood Hosseinzadeh,Zahra Kanannejad,Iraj Sharifi,Mehdi Karamian

doi:10.1007/s00436-018-6041-1

Abstract

Visceral leishmaniasis (VL) is endemic in Iran and is caused predominantly by Leishmania infantum, but L. tropica is emerging as an important cause. We studied the intra-species population structure of Leishmania spp. causing VL in southwest Iran by sequence analysis of the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) 1 of DNA samples from 29 bone marrow aspiration smears. L. infantum (n = 25) and L. tropica (n = 4) were identified, consisting of 10 and three ITS1 sequence types (STs), respectively. Compared to GenBank ITS1 STs, our L. infantum parasites displayed high heterogeneity but less heterogeneity compared than northwest Iranian isolates. VL affects mostly nomadic populations in southwest Iran, and their mobility may explain partly the L. infantum heterogeneity. The VL causing L. tropica was also genetically heterogeneous but genetically indistinguishable from L. tropica strains causing anthroponotic cutaneous leishmaniasis from southwest Iran.

Highlights

Leishmaniasis is a complex of neglected tropical diseases, caused by different species of Leishmania, which are present in five continents (Zijlstra 2016)
The species identification was confirmed by comparing our ITS1 sequences with sequences that have been deposited in GenBank
Most similarity was found between ST1 and ST4 (99.6%), ST4 and ST7 (99.2%), and ST4 and ST3 (99.2%), and the least similarity was found between ST10 and ST8 (92.7%), and ST10 and ST6 (93%) (Fig. 3)

Summary

Introduction

Leishmaniasis is a complex of neglected tropical diseases, caused by different species of Leishmania, which are present in five continents (Zijlstra 2016). VL causing species vary geographically, Leishmania donovani in South Asia (Bern et al 2007; Rijal et al 2010; Singh et al 2010) and East Africa 2016), and Leishmania infantum (L. chagasi) in Central and South America, the Middle East, Mediterranean Basin, Central Asia and China (WHO 2010). VL caused by Leishmania tropica, a species that causes Old World cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL), has been reported sporadically in humans in South Asia and humans and dogs in the Middle East and North Africa (Mebrahtu et al 1989; Guessous-Idrissi et al 1997; Alborzi et al 2006; Hajjaran et al 2007; Khanra et al 2012; Hosseininasab et al 2014).

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion