Genotypic discrimination between a Leishmania isolate and two Leishmania major reference strains using PCR-RFLP...

The restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) of 18S rDNA amplified fragments, was conducted to recognize between an unidentified Leishmania isolated from Egyptian patient infected in Saudi Arabia and two L. major reference strains causing cutaneous lesions. The strains were maintained both in vivo & in vitro. Additional requirement as morphological characterization on basis of the light microscope & scanning electron microscopy and behaviour in experimental Swiss albino mice regarding development of lesions were performed. The results showed that, PCR-RFLP analysis of the 18S rDNA amplified PCR fragments was highly successful to put the unidentified Leishmania strain in the category of L. major. There was no significant differences regarding the cutaneous lesions development. In spite of the significant variations of the morphometric measurements of the three strains were observed.