Tarbiat Modares University Pathobiology Research 2538-3000 18 3 2015 10 01 Frequency and Molecular Identification of Leishmania Parasites in Smears Prepared from Skin Lesions of Patients Referred to Health Centers of Ilam Province by Digestion of the rDNA-ITS1 Gene بررسی فراوانی و شناسایی مولکولی انگل‌های لیشمانیا در اسمیر‌های تهیه شده از ضایعات پوستی بیماران مراجعه کننده به مراکز بهداشتی- درمانی استان ایلام با استفاده از هضم آنزیمی‌ ژن rDNA-ITS1 75 85 19277 EN Eskandar Gholami-Parizad Department of General Health, Faculty of Health, Ilam University of Medical Sciences, Ilam, Iran Naseh Maleki Ravasan Malaria and Vector Research Group (MVRG), Biotechnology Research Center (BRC), Pasteur Institute of Iran (PII), Tehran, Iran Elahe Gholami-Parizad Research Centre of Clinical Microbiology, Ilam University of Medical Sciences, Ilam, Iran Fateh Karimian Department of General Health, Faculty of Health, Ilam University of Medical Sciences, Ilam, Iran Department of Medical Entomology and Vector Control, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran Behrooz Karimian Department of Biochemistry, School of Medicine, Urmia University of Medical Sciences, Urmia, Iran Journal Article <strong>Objective</strong>: Ilam is a border province and a high risk zone for zoonotic cutaneous leishmaniasis (ZCL). Identification of <em>Leishmania</em> parasite species in clinical infections is a prerequisite for planning appropriate control measures. This study investigates the demographic characteristics of patients and molecular epidemiology of <em>Leishmania</em> parasites in the skin lesions of patients from Ilam Province. <strong>Methods</strong>: A total of 106 cases of suspected cutaneous leishmaniasis were detected passively and microscopic slides prepared from their active skin lesions. We randomly selected 50 slides. A fragment of the rDNA-ITS1 gene was amplified after which the PCR products digested with <em>Hae</em>III restriction enzyme. There were 18 samples sequenced and their phylogenetic relationships compared with sequences retrieved from GenBank. <strong>Results</strong>: <em>Leishmania</em> amastigotes were detected in 100 slides. The highest and lowest distribution of cases was from the Moosian and Dehloran districts, respectively. There were 68.9% males and 31.1% of cases were women. The RFLP pattern of all samples was similar to <em>Leishmania major</em>. Phylogenetic relationships displayed great similarity between our sequences and those of <em>Leishmania major</em> parasites from sandflies trapped in Ilam and South Khorasan Provinces and human hosts from Esfarayen, Mahshahr and Afghanistan plus <em>Leishmania mexicana</em> of Venezuelan origin classified together in the same clade. <strong>Conclusion</strong>: Due to homogeneous morphology, problems associated with the cultivation of <em>Leishmania</em> and the two-step molecular identification process, the rDNA-ITS1-RFLP method has gained considerable attention in recent years. This method could be used as a very sensitive, simple, rapid and inexpensive method to detect <em>Leishmania</em> parasites in a variety of clinical and non-clinical samples. <strong> </strong> https://mjms.modares.ac.ir/article_19277_65aaf6fbf016b5f1db30b039bd629efb.pdf