Studies on New World leishmaniasis and its transmission

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In this fiscal year, the following items were mainly carried out : 1) the treatment of cutaneous leishmaniasis patients with antimalarial drugs ; 2) identification of parasites isolated in different endemic areas of Ecuador ; and 3) some laboratory experiments using materials collected in the field.1) When 115 isolates from Ecuador were examined by ELISA using 9 monoclonal antibodies, 66 were L.panamensis ; 18, L.mexicana ; 8, L.major-like ; 4, L.braziliensis ; and 2. L.equatorensis. however, 17 isolates were not identified by the present method.2) When Ecuadorian patients with cutaneous leishmaniasis were treated with Mephaquin and Plasmotrim, antimalarial drugs, the majority of them were curative between 2 and 4 weeks after the commencement of the oral treatment showing 100% cure rate. The results obtained in this study are excellent when compared with the parenteral treatment with antimonials. Therefore, the effects of these antimalarial drugs should be tested for other clinical forms of leishmaniasis such as DCL,VL,MCL and PKDL.3) In laboratory studies using the antimalarial drugs mentioned above, no clear-cut curative effect was observed in mice or other experimental animals. Such a discrepancy between animals and humans might be caused by the difference of the action mode of the drug used.4) Electron microscopic examinations of skin biopsies from treated patients with the antimalarial drugs revealed that there was an interesting morphological change in Leishmania organisms and the infected cells, macrophages.5) In order to know the role of P-glycoprotein from Ecuadorian Leishmania amazonensis, the relating gene was isolated and all the base pair arrangement was sequenced. The results obtained suggested that the gene might be a new P-glycoprotein of the genus Leishmania.