title: A new standard for the assessment of disease progression in murine cutaneous leishmaniasis.
abstract: Infection of mice with Leishmania major has been used both as a model for the cutaneous disease in humans and as a model for the more general control and function of helper T cells in immunity. In both cases, disease patterns and disease progression have been assessed by two complementary methods, lesion size and parasite burden in the draining lymph nodes. We propose a much improved method for the graphical representation of lesion development which conveys more information with better accuracy. We also describe a polymerase chain reaction method for determining parasite burden, which is faster and allows the analysis of larger numbers of experimental animals than the current limiting dilution analysis. Moreover, these methods are equally applicable to other infectious diseases, an obvious one being schistosomiasis.
authors.affiliation: The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, Post Office Royal Melbourne Hospital, Victoria 3050, Australia.
authors.forename: L J
authors.initials: LJ
authors.lastname: Roberts
authors.forename: S J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Foote
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Handman
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D016054:DNA, Protozoan / Q000032:analysis*; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D018450:Disease Progression; D018320:Leishmania major / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D016773:Leishmaniasis, Cutaneous / Q000276:immunology / Q000469:parasitology* / Q000473:pathology*; D008198:Lymph Nodes / Q000469:parasitology*; D051379:Mice; D008807:Mice, Inbred BALB C; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction / Q000379:methods
chemical_list: D016054:DNA, Protozoan