Журнал бактериологии и паразитологии

Абстрактный

Determination of pathogens in patients with cutaneous leishmaniasis using PCR-RFLP

Eroglu F, Koltas I.S. and Gench A.

Cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) is a public health problem in Çukurova, located in the southern part of Turkey. We evaluated the performance of PCR method in establishing the diagnosis of CL. We used two different targets: kinetoplast DNA (cDNA) for diagnosis and gene mini-exon for species typing. Sixty-four swab samples from suspected CL cases were collected. DNA was amplified from kinetoplast DNA (cDNA) by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) with Leishmania genus-specific universal primers 13A-13B, and DNA was amplified in the mini-exon region by PCR with Leishmania species-specific primers Fme-Rme. We compared the sensitivity and specificity of conventional cDNA mini-exon microscopy and PCR. The cDNA PCR was found to have a specificity of 58.8% and a sensitivity of 100%, respectively. In addition, we performed restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analysis on the mini-exon PCR products to genotyping Leishmania species. Interestingly, the PCR-RFLP result showed that 31.5% of the isolates were Leishmania infantum (L.infantum) in CL cases without history of visceral leishmaniasis (VL).