title: Phylogenetic structure of Leishmania tropica in the new endemic focus Birjand in East Iran in comparison to other Iranian endemic regions.
abstract: Iran has been identified being among the countries with the highest number of cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) cases. South Khorasan province in East Iran is an emerging focus of CL. Species identification of sixty clinical samples by ITS1 PCR-RFLP presented evidence for the dominance of Leishmania tropica (90%) in this region. Analysis of the ITS1 sequence of 19 L. tropica isolates revealed seven closely related sequence types. In addition, ITS1 sequences available in GenBank from other Iranian regions were compiled for comparison with the studied isolates. Iranian L. tropica was distributed in two main clusters. All East Iranian sequence types were grouped with strains from foci from Southeast and Central regions in cluster A, showing highly similar sequences. The highest similarity was observed between most L. tropica from East and all isolates from Southeast regions and from Savojbolagh county in Central Iran. Southwest L. tropica was shown to be paraphyletic as the isolates were distributed in both clusters A and B. All Northeastern L. tropica were part of cluster B, however they showed significant heterogeneity and were distributed in different subclusters. Distribution of L. tropica populations was to some extent congruent with genetic lineages of Phlebotomus sergenti in Iran and may be an evidence for parasite-vector co-evolution. Southeast-East L. tropica was also similar to strains from Herat province in Afghanistan at the East border of Iran. This is the first comprehensive study on population structure of L. tropica in Iran that provides a guideline for appropriate sampling for further molecular based epidemiological studies.
authors.affiliation: Hepatitis Research Centre, School of Medicine, Birjand University of Medical Sciences, Birjand, Iran; Cellular and Molecular Research Center, School of Medicine, Birjand University of Medical Sciences, Birjand, Iran.
authors.forename: Mehdi
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Karamian
authors.affiliation: Division of Molecular Biotechnology and Functional Genomics, Technical University of Applied Sciences, Wildau, Germany.
authors.forename: Katrin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kuhls
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry, School of Medicine, Birjand University of Medical Sciences, Birjand, Iran.
authors.forename: Mina
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hemmati
authors.affiliation: Cellular and Molecular Research Center, Yasuj University of Medical Sciences, Yasuj, Iran; Parasitology Department, School of Medicine, Yasuj University of Medical Sciences, Yasuj, Iran. Electronic address: ghateea1980@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Mohammad Amin
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Ghatee
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D019353:Endemic Diseases; D006801:Humans; D007492:Iran / Q000453:epidemiology; D007895:Leishmania tropica / Q000145:classification* / Q000235:genetics*; D016773:Leishmaniasis, Cutaneous / Q000453:epidemiology*; D010691:Phlebotomus / Q000469:parasitology*; D010802:Phylogeny; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D012150:Polymorphism, Restriction Fragment Length; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA
keywords: Endemic; ITS1; Leishmania tropica; Phylogenetics