Genetic micro-heterogeneity of Leishmania major in emerging foci of zoonotic cutaneous leishmaniasis in Tunisia

Hanène Attia (1, 2) , Rabiaa M. Sghaier (1, 2) , Tesfaye Gelanew (3) , Aymen Bali (1, 2) , Carola Schweynoch (3) , Fatma Z. Guerfali (1, 2) , Ghada Mkannez (1, 2) , Sadok Chlif (1, 2, 4) , Nabil Belhaj-Hamida (1, 2, 4) , Koussay Dellagi (1, 2) , Gabriele Schoenian (3) , Dhafer Laouini (1, 2)

1 UTM - Université de Tunis El Manar
2 LR11IPT02 - Laboratoire de Transmission, Contrôle et Immunobiologie des Infections - Laboratory of Transmission, Control and Immunobiology of Infection
3 Charité - UniversitätsMedizin = Charité - University Hospital [Berlin]
4 Laboratoire d'Epidémiologie Médicale, Institut Pasteur de Tunis

Tunisia is endemic for zoonotic cutaneous leishmaniasis (ZCL), a parasitic disease caused by Leishmania (L.) major. ZCL displays a wide clinical polymorphism, with severe forms present more frequently in emerging foci where naive populations are dominant. In this study, we applied the multi-locus microsatellite typing (MLMT) using ten highly informative and discriminative markers to investigate the genetic structure of 35 Tunisian Leishmania (L.) major isolates collected from patients living in five different foci of Central Tunisia (two old and three emerging foci). Phylogenetic reconstructions based on genetic distances showed that nine of the ten tested loci were homogeneous in all isolates with homozygous alleles, whereas one locus (71AT) had a 58/64-bp bi-allelic profile with an allele linked to emerging foci. Promastigote-stage parasites with the 58-bp allele tend to be more resistant to in vitro complement lysis. These results, which stress the geographical dependence of the genetic micro-heterogeneity, may improve our understanding of the ZCL epidemiology and clinical outcome.

Keywords: Multi-locus microsatellite typing; Leishmania major; Old focus; Zoonotic cutaneous leishmaniasis; Emerging focus; Heterogeneity

Domains: Parasitology; Santé publique et épidémiologie

Hanène Attia, Rabiaa M. Sghaier, Tesfaye Gelanew, Aymen Bali, Carola Schweynoch, et al.. Genetic micro-heterogeneity of Leishmania major in emerging foci of zoonotic cutaneous leishmaniasis in Tunisia. Infection, Genetics and Evolution, 2016, 43, pp.179-185. ⟨10.1016/j.meegid.2016.04.032⟩. ⟨pasteur-01374992⟩