Potential co-infection of Wolbachia with Leishmania among sand fly vectors caught from endemic leishmaniasis foci in Fars province, southern Iran.

Leishmaniasis is one of the Neglected Tropical Diseases in the tropical region of many countries in the world. The etiological agents (Leishmania parasites) of the disease are transmitted to human and other vertebrate hosts by infectious bites of female phlebotomine sand flies. On the other hand, some symbiotic microorganisms such as Wolbachia (Rickettsiales: Anaplasmataceae) may be transmitted vertically in many arthropods and may cause synergistic or antagonistic effects on epidemiology of the vector-borne diseases. Hence, in the present study, potential coinfection of Wolbachia with Leishmania in the sand fly vectors will be examined by PCR technique in the important leishmaniasis foci of Fars province in southern Iran, as a new feature for the disease long-term control. Sand flies were collected by sticky traps from indoor and outdoor locations of 5 different areas of Fars province during 2018 and 2019. DNAs of sand flies were extracted and PCR method was performed based on primers which were designed from surface proteins (WSP) genome region for Wolbachia and minicircle kDNA gene for Leishmania detections. At last, PCR products were sequenced and recorded in the GenBank. Out of 1002 sand flies caught from 5 different foci of Fars province, 909 male and female and 386 female sand flies' DNAs were extracted for detection of Wolbachia and Leishmania by PCR, respectively. Accordingly, out of the total 44 pools prepared from sand flies, 6 out of 28 pools form P. papatasi female were positive for Wolbachia in Shiraz, Marvdasht and Kharameh. However, none of female sand flies were positive for Leishmania. The study also focused on monitoring of sand flies co-infection of Wolbachia with Leishmania, which was not found in any of the studied samples. The negative results may be due to control strategies implemented which were done against Leishmaniasis in the studied areas during last years. © Indian Society for Parasitology 2021.