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Leishmania attachment in permissive vectors and the role of sand fly midgut proteins in parasite-vector interaction
Dostálová, Anna ; Volf, Petr (advisor) ; Traub-Cseko, Yara Maria (referee) ; Rogers, Matthew E. (referee)
of PhD thesis "Leishmania attachment in permissive vectors and the role of sand fly midgut proteins in parasite-vector interaction" Anna Dostalova, MSc. The thesis focuses on the development of protozoan parasites of the genus Leishmania in their insect vectors, sand flies. It sums up results of three projects I was involved in during my PhD studies. Main emphasis was put on permissive sand fly species that support development of various species of Leishmania. Using a novel method of binding of fluorescently labeled leishmania promastigotes to the midguts in vitro, we studied the stage- and species-specificity of the binding. We demonstrated that Leishmania midgut binding is strictly stage-dependent, is a property of forms found in the middle phase of development (long and short nectomonad forms), but is absent in early forms occurring in within the blood meal, procyclics, and in final stages, metacyclics. Comparing the binding of several leishmania species, we showed the natural parasite is not necessarily the species that can always bind in vitro most efficiently to the midgut of its vector. In some cases, we even observed significant binding of Leishmania species that do not survive in the midgut of the particular sand fly species in vivo. We conclude that the specificity of in vitro binding...
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