gms | German Medical Science

10. Kongress für Infektionskrankheiten und Tropenmedizin (KIT 2010)

Deutsche Gesellschaft für Infektiologie,
Deutsche AIDS-Gesellschaft,
Deutsche Gesellschaft für Tropenmedizin und Internationale Gesundheit,
Paul-Ehrlich-Gesellschaft für Chemotherapie

23.06. - 26.06.2010, Köln

Is vector-parasite interaction a determining factor for the population structure of L. donovani in East Africa?

Ist Vektor-Parasit-Interaktion ein entscheidender Faktor für die Struktur von L. donovani in Ost-Afrika?

Meeting Abstract

  • T. Gelanew - Microbiology and Hygiene, Charité University Medicine Berlin, Parasitology, Berlin, Germany
  • K. Kuhls - Microbiology and Hygiene, Charité University Medicine Berlin, Parasitology, Berlin, Germany
  • A. Hailu - Medical Faculty, Addis Ababa University, Microbiology, Immunology & Parasitology, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
  • G. Schönian - Microbiology and Hygiene, Charité University Medicine Berlin, Parasitology, Berlin, Germany

10. Kongress für Infektionskrankheiten und Tropenmedizin (KIT 2010). Köln, 23.-26.06.2010. Düsseldorf: German Medical Science GMS Publishing House; 2010. DocP91

doi: 10.3205/10kit146, urn:nbn:de:0183-10kit1464

Published: June 2, 2010

© 2010 Gelanew et al.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/deed.en). You are free: to Share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work, provided the original author and source are credited.


Outline

Text

In the Horn of Africa, two phlebotomine sand fly species have been implicated to transmit parasites of the L. donovani complex: Phlebotomus orientalis in northwest Ethiopia (NWE) and Sudan, and P. martini in southwest Ethiopia (SWE) and Kenya. It remains to be established whether the differences in biology and ecology of these sand fly vectors may have consequences for the population structure of the L. donovani parasites they harbor and transmit. We investigated 64 strains of L. donovani newly isolated from VL cases in the two main foci in Ethiopia, NWE and SWE, by using 14 highly polymorphic microsatellite markers and compared the microsatellite profiles obtained to those of L. donovani strains from Sudan, Kenya and India. Multilocus microsatellite based population genetic analysis placed strains from SWE and Kenya (n=31) in one population and strains from NWE and Sudan (n=66) in another population. The two genetically separated populations corresponded to the areas where the two different sand fly species are prevalent. High inbreeding was found in strains isolated in SWE and Kenya. Whether the two genetically distinct populations in Ethiopia truly reflect different parasite-vector associations needs further investigations which should involve more strains from the focus in South Omo where the two vectors overlap.