title: Establishment of an appropriate inoculum dose of Leishmania donovani promastigotes required to establish a visceral infection in laboratory animal rodent models.
abstract: Syrian hamsters and BALB/c mice were inoculated intraperitoneally with various doses of stationary phase Leishmania donovani promastigotes derived from primary, secondary and tertiary cultures. Axenic derived amastigotes from a tertiary culture and mass-culture derived promastigotes from primary, secondary, and tertiary cultures were also used. Animals were sacrificed after 30 days incubation period and parasite-loads quantified from Giemsa stained spleen smears. A primary inoculum dose of 1 x10(8) was found to be the most appropriate in effecting a visceral infection. This parasite dose resulted in a spleen parasite-load of 10-20 amastigotes per field of microscope view at x1,000 magnification. Those involved in candidate vaccine molecules or experimental drugs against kala-azar will find these results useful.
authors.affiliation: Biomedical Sciences Research Centre, Kenya Medical Research Institute, P.O.Box 54840, Nairobi, Kenya.
authors.forename: Peter A.
authors.initials: PA
authors.lastname: Mbati
authors.forename: Kisia
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Abok
authors.forename: Alloys S.
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Orago
authors.forename: Christopher O.
authors.initials: CO
authors.lastname: Anjili
authors.forename: John I.
authors.initials: JI
authors.lastname: Githure
authors.forename: Jim M.
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Kagai
authors.forename: Davy K.
authors.initials: DK
authors.lastname: Koech