Molecular diagnosis of canine visceral leishmaniasis : a comparative study of three methods using skin and spleen from dogs with natural Leishmania infantum infection.

Abstract

Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and its variations represent highly sensitive and specificmethods for Leishmania DNA detection and subsequent canine visceral leishmaniasis (CVL)diagnosis. The aim of this work was to compare three different molecular diagnosis tech-niques (conventional PCR [cPCR], seminested PCR [snPCR], and quantitative PCR [qPCR])in samples of skin and spleen from 60 seropositive dogs by immunofluorescence antibodytest and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Parasitological analysis was conducted byculture of bone marrow aspirate and optical microscopic assessment of ear skin and spleensamples stained with Giemsa, the standard tests for CVL diagnosis. The primers L150/L152and LINR4/LIN17/LIN19 were used to amplify the conserved region of the Leishmania kDNAminicircle in the cPCR, and snPCR and qPCR were performed using the DNA polymerasegene (DNA pol _) primers from Leishmania infantum. The parasitological analysis revealedparasites in 61.7% of the samples. Sensitivities were 89.2%, 86.5%, and 97.3% in the skin and81.1%, 94.6%, and 100.0% in spleen samples used for cPCR, snPCR, and qPCR, respectively.We demonstrated that the qPCR method was the best technique to detect L. infantum inboth skin and spleen samples. However, we recommend the use of skin due to the highsensitivity and sampling being less invasive.