From 1994 to 1996, an outbreak of leishmaniasis was described in Cajuata and
surrounding communities in Inquisivi province, La Paz Department, Bolivia; eight strains were
isolated from patients with cutaneous ulcers and characterized by isoenzyme typing using 11
loci. All of these stocks were genetically related to Leishmania ama-zonensis. In the
current work, new ubiquitous primers L1 : 5'-CCT ACC CAG AGG CCT GTC GGG-3' L2 :
5'-TAA TAT AGT GGG CCG CGC AC-3', purchased from Genset laboratory (Paris, France)
were designed from the minicircle sequence of MHOM/BR/75/M2904 L. braziliensis
strain to amplify variable regions of kDNA minicircles. These primers generate polymorphic
multi-banding patterns for all Leishmania sp. and other Kinetoplastidae,
Trypanosoma cruzi, T. rangeli and T. brucei sp. Three probes were generated
from major polymerase chain reaction (PCR) bands derived from strains of L.
mexicana (MNYC/BZ/62/M379), L. chagasi (MHOM/BR/74/PP75) and L.
braziliensis (MHOM/BO/90/CG) species. The heterogeneity of the Leishmania sp.
was investigated by hybridization of these probes to membrane-bound PCR products obtained
from a large set of Leishmania strains previously characterized by isoenzyme typing.
These probes were specific of their respective Leishmania complex. {/P}{P}
{P}Key words: Leishmania amazonensis - Leishmania complex - reservoirs -
Sub-andean region - polymerase chain reaction - Bolivia {/P}
