Purification of metacyclic leishmanial promastigotes by using peanut lectin agglutinin test

Abstract EN

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.