Iran is one of the six countries with the most cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) patients. Understanding better the genotypes of the
parasite population in relation to geography and climate is critical to achieving better CL control. We aimed to characterise the
population structure of Leishmania tropica, the cause of anthroponotic cutaneous leishmaniasis (ACL), from important foci in
southeast (BamandKerman) and southwest (Shiraz) Iran.Atotal of 39 L. tropica isolates fromACL patients fromsoutheast (Bam14,
Kerman 12) and southwest (Shiraz 13) Iran were analysed by polymerase chain reaction restriction fragment length polymorphism
(PCR-RFLP) of the kinetoplastDNA(kDNA) using restriction enzymes MspI (HpaII) andClaI. 37 genotypeswere identified among
south Iran L. tropica isolates.The unweighted pair group method with arithmetic mean (UPGMA) tree obtained from the banding
patterns of ClaI digested kDNA RFLP distinguished southeast from and southwest L. tropica isolates with some subclustering but
the MspI derived tree showed greater discrimination with greater subclustering and divergence of the two foci of southeast region
but with some overlapping. Although a monophyletic structure has been defined for southeast L. tropica, isolates from two foci of
southeast Iran were partly discriminated in the current study.
کلید واژگان :
Leishmania Population structure KDNA southern Iran
