Control strategies for visceral (VL) and mucocutaneous leishmaniasis (MCL) in South America


A full and detailed understanding of the transmission cycles and epidemiology of visceral leishmaniasis (VL) and mucocutaneous leishmaniasis (MCL) is necessary to develop disease control and surveillance. Molecular epidemiology and population genetics can resolve the diversity and structure of Leishmania populations, for example the intricate relationships between clinical forms of human infection and mammal reservoirs. Research will involve comparative investigations between endemic areas for VL and MCL in Paraguay, Peru, Brazil and Venezuela. The technical aim is to develop a full range of microsatellite markers and multi-locus sequencing typing (MLST) of housekeeping genes for the Leishmania braziliensis complex and for L guyanensis. In South America procedures for microsatellite and MLST analysis for L. infantum will be established that have been developed by a European network. The practical aims are to encourage the application of these and other molecular epidemiological methods in South America for 1. elucidating parasite-vector-host relationships 2. assessing the epidemiological impact of VL-HIV co-infection (Brazil) 3. assessing the epidemiological importance of recombinant Leishmania genotypes and 4. assessing the spread of resistance against first line treatment (SbV). In addition, we will compare genotypes of a) Leishmania isolated from diverse clinical cases of leishmaniasis and b) drug susceptible and drug-resistant strains.
Head of Project:

Dr.rer.nat. Gabriele Schönian
Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin
Institute of Microbiology and Hygiene CCM/CBF
Additional Head of Project:

Michael Miles - London (LSTMH)
Additional Member of Project:

Katrin Kuhls, Carola Schweynoch
Begin/End of Project:

01/2006 - 12/2008
Funded by:

Europäische Union (EU)
Scienceclassification:

n.a.
Publications:

1. Garcia AL, Kindt A, Quispe-Tintaya KW, Bermudez H, Llanos A, Arevalo J, Banuls AL, De Doncker S, Le Ray D, Dujardin JC. (2005) American tegumentary leishmaniasis: antigen-gene polymorphism, taxonomy and clinical pleomorphism. Infect Genet Evol 5, 109-116 2. Botilde Y, Laurent T, Quispe Tintaya W, Chicharro C, Canavate C, Cruz I, Kuhls K, Schönian G, and Dujardin JC (2006) Comparison of molecular markers for strain typing of Leishmania infantum. Infect. Genet. Evol. 6, 440-446 3. Kuhls K, Keilonat L, Ochsenreither S, Schaar M, Schweynoch C, Presber W, Schönian G. (2007) Multilocus microsatellite typing (MLMT) reveals genetically isolated populations between and within the main endemic regions of visceral leishmaniasis.Microbes Infect. 9, 334-43. 4. Nolder D, Roncal N, Davies CR, Llanos-Cuentas A, Miles MA. (2007) Multiple hybrid genotypes of Leishmania (Viannia) in a focus of mucocutaneous leishmaniasis. Am J Trop Med Hyg, 76, 573-578 5. Fakhar M, Motazedian MH, Daly D, Lowe CD, Kemp SJ, Noyes H. (2008) An integrated pipeline for the development of novel panels of mapped microsatellite markers for Leishmania donovani complex, Leishmania braziliensis und Leishmania major. Parasitol 135, 1-8