Development of Leishmania Species Strains with Constitutive Expression of eGFP.

Protozoan parasites of the genus Leishmania cause leishmaniasis, a disease with variable clinical manifestations that affects millions of people worldwide. Infection with L. donovani can result in fatal visceral disease.

Environmental Conditions May Shape the Patterns of Genomic Variations in .

Due to the absence of transcriptional regulation of gene expression in parasites, it is now well accepted that several forms of genomic variations modulate the levels of critical proteins through changes in gene dosage. We previously observed many of these variations in our reference laboratory strain of (PSC-1 strain), including chromosomes with an increased somy and the presence of a putative linear minichromosome derived from chromosome 34. Here, we compared the previously described genomic variations with those occurring after exposure of this strain to increasing concentrations of trivalent antimony (Sb), as well as those present in two geographically unrelated clinical isolates of .