Evaluation of a novel MLST scheme over a panle of Leishmania spp. stocks from Northwestern Argentina

LAUTHIER JUAN JOSÉ; RUYBAL PAULA; CAJAL PAMELA; HOYOS CARLOS LORENZO ; BRACAMONTE MARIA ESTEFANIA ; MOYA AGUSTIN ; BARROSO PAOLA ANDREA; MARCO JORGE DIEGO; KORENAGA MASATAKA

Okinawa

Otro; The 60th Annual Meeting for the Japanese Society of Tropical Medicine; 2019

Japanese Society of Tropical Medicine

Cutaneous (CL) and mucocutaneous leishmaniasis (MCL)are endemic in northern Argentina. Both, the largest number of reported cases (53,1%) and the highest incidence with CL and MCL have been found in the north of Salta Province,representing only 0,7% of the country population. Rural labors and outdoor recreational activities seen to be associated with high incidence of the disease i nthe areas. In addition, recent reports have shown a potential urban transmission. In this scenario, it becames indispensable to have tools capable to incriminate the infective species in the studied area. So that, goverment health authorities migh apply to realistic action measures. A high number of molecular markers have been developed to resolve phylogenetic differences at the species level and for addressing key epidemiological and population genetics questions. Here, two optimized MLST schemes previously proposed by our research group based on the analysis of three and ten-gene fragments, suitable for species assignment as well to baseic phylogenetic sudies are analyzed. This is the first work tha two optimized MLST schemes are validated against a diverse panel of Leishmania spp. stocks from the same geographic region. We have identified the Leishmania species involved in each case, but also the genetic background of the parasites circulating in the studied area.