Authors
Abstract
Lieshmania metacyclic promastigotes are transmitted during blood meals after
development inside the gut of the sandfly vector. The isolation from axenic cultures of
procyclic and metacyclic promastigotes by peanut lectin agglutination followed by
differential centrifugation is controversial in Leishmania major . The purpose of this
study was to isolate both fractions simultaneously from the same population in
stationary phase of axenic culture. We have confirmed the increased infection rate of
PNA− promastigotes by inoculation in BALB/c mice infection experiments. These
data support that metacyclic promastigotes are related with infectivity and the lack of
agglutination with PNA is a phenotypic marker for this subpopulation.
Keywords
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