[Leish-l] Axenic amastigotes

[Duncan, Robert]

I have worked in the lab with axenic L. donovani for 20 years. Evaluating gene expression, cell biology and differentiation. They are an invaluable tool especially for molecular biology which requires a sufficient quantity of material to analyze.  However, I consider findings tentative until confirmed in cultured macrophage infections and rodent infections. We have recently begun studies of "full natural cycle transmissions": infected sand flies biting hamsters that develop visceral leishmaniasis, parasites from the infected hamsters fed to sand flies that are used to infect hamsters. Preliminary results suggest that cultured promastigotes are not a perfect model either. We certainly would not give up the years of discovery based on laboratory studies of cultured promastigotes.

-Robert Duncan

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