In vitro cultivation of Leishmania donovani promastigotes: Growth potential of human urine as replacement of fetal calf serum

Abdalla Hassan Sharief*, Eltahir Awad GAsim Khalil and Suad M Suliaman

In vitro cultivation of Leishmania parasites plays an important role in diagnosis and treatment of leishmaniasis and in vaccine and drug development studies. There is no information about the effects of urine within culture on the infectivity of Leishmania parasites. In this study we used two culture media with different overlays to enhance the in vitro growth rates of Leishmania donovani. 

In this study we used two culture media with different overlays to enhance the in vitro growth rates of Leishmania donovani. Addition of female human urine to these media enhanced the growth of the promastigotes by at least 40 times when compared to the classical Novy-MacNeal-Nicole medium (NNN). Analysis of the effect of urine have showed that proliferation indexes were significantly increased in culture medium supplemented with human urine to 12.84×106 parasite / ml in day 12. On the other hand, when 5% fresh human urine was overlaid, the promastigotes’ count was increased to 32.8×106 parasite / ml on day 4 and further increase to 58.5 x 106 parasite / ml on day 8 was significantly (p=0.002) noted) to 137.8×106 parasite / ml on day 12.

In conclusion, human urine in parasite cultures differentially affected the infectivity and proliferation of L.donovani species promastigotes. Further identification of components found in urine that play a role in infectivity of parasites may be important for understanding transmission mechanisms of parasites into infective stages. 

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Published on: Jan 22, 2021 Pages: 1-4

Full Text PDF Full Text HTML DOI: 10.17352/asb.000010
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