title: Expression Analysis of Multiple Genes May Involve in Antimony Resistance amongLeishmania majorClinical Isolates from Fars Province, Central Iran.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Treatment of Cutaneous Leishmaniasis (CL) is being faced with serious difficulties in Fars Province, due to emerging of resistance against meglumine antimonite (Glucantime®). In this context, determining some biomarkers for drug sensitivity monitoring seems to be highly essential. Different studies have been carried out to decipher the genes might be involved in antimony resistant phenotype inLeishmaniaspp. Here, we selected three genes: AQP (as drug transporter), TDR-1-1(as drug activator), and γ-GCS (inducing reduction environment) for comparative expression analysis on clinical resistant and sensitive isolates ofL. major.
  
  
  METHODS
  The clinical isolates ofL. majorwere collected from CL patients referred to Valfajr Health Center, Shiraz from Oct 2011 to Feb 2012. The susceptibility test was performed to confirm drug sensitivity of strains in vitro as well. Then, the gene expression analysis was performed by quantitative real-time PCR using SYBR® Green.
  
  
  RESULTS
  By comparison of expression level between strains, up regulation of γ-GCS gene and down regulation of AQP gene were observed in resistant strains compared to the sensitive isolates; however, down regulation of AQP was not statistically specific. Analysis of TDR-1-1 gene unexpectedly showed a high level of expression in the non-responsive cases.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The γ-GCS, at least, can be considered as a suitable molecular marker for screening antimony sensitivity in clinical isolates, although AQP and TDR-1-1gene seem not to be reliable resistant markers.
authors.affiliation: Dept. of Parasitology and Mycology, School of Medicine, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran.
authors.forename: Nafiseh
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Ghobakhloo
authors.affiliation: Basic Sciences in Infectious Diseases, Research Center, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran.
authors.forename: Mohammad Hossein
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Motazedian
authors.affiliation: Dept. of Genetics, School of Medicine, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran.
authors.forename: Majid
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Fardaei
keywords: Antimony resistance; Iran; Leishmania major; Molecular marker