Establishment of an appropriate inoculum dose of Leishmania donovani promastigotes required to establish a visceral infection in laboratory animal rodent models.
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.
Mbati
Peter A.
PA
Biomedical Sciences Research Centre, Kenya Medical Research Institute, P.O.Box 54840, Nairobi, Kenya.
Abok
Kisia
K
Orago
Alloys S.
AS
Anjili
Christopher O.
CO
Githure
John I.
JI
Kagai
Jim M.
JM
Koech
Davy K.
DK