Distinguishing Leishmania tropica and Leishmania major in the Middle East using the polymerase chain reaction with kinetoplast DNA-specific primers.

This paper reports attempts to develop a sensitive and inexpensive procedure for rapid diagnosis of cutaneous leishmaniasis at the species level using skin scrapings from patients. The presence of 3 species (Leishmania major, L. tropica and L. infantum) in Israel and the West Bank demonstrates the need for a species-specific detection method in this region. The primer pair Uni21/Lmj4 was developed on the basis of an L. major minicircle sequence but it also amplified other 'Old World' species of Leishmania. Due to species-specific differences in the size of minicircles, these primers can be used in the polymerase chain reaction to answer diagnostic and epidemiological questions.