PURIFICATION OF METACYCLIC LEISHMANIAL PROMASTIGOTES BY USING PEANUT LECTIN AGGLUTININ TEST .

Abstract

Lieshmania metacyclic promastigotes are transmitted during blood meals afterdevelopment inside the gut of the sandfly vector. The isolation from axenic cultures ofprocyclic and metacyclic promastigotes by peanut lectin agglutination followed bydifferential centrifugation is controversial in Leishmania major . The purpose of thisstudy was to isolate both fractions simultaneously from the same population instationary phase of axenic culture. We have confirmed the increased infection rate ofPNA− promastigotes by inoculation in BALB/c mice infection experiments. Thesedata support that metacyclic promastigotes are related with infectivity and the lack ofagglutination with PNA is a phenotypic marker for this subpopulation.