I want to infect mice with the stationary phase promastigotes of these two leishmania species and I have read that during growth, promastigotes undergo selective changes in surface carbohydrates, determined by their agglutination by plant lectins.
So which lectins should I use?
PNA is Lectin which bind terminal galactose. In Leishmania major, the repeat unit contains galactose as terminal sugar in the procyclic stage however this sugar is covered by arabinose in the metacyclic stage. Please see Spath and beverly Experimental Parasitology 99, 97–103 (2001). So PNA can be used to separate L. major procyc parasites from metacyc parasites. However this is not the case in L. braziliensis which does not seem to contain galactose in the branch chain. So PNA does not seem to be the adequate enzyme to separate procyc from metacyc parasites of L. braziliensis. Please see Ibraim et al. Parasites & Vectors, 2013, Vol 6
:54
In the Spath and Beverly article they use an LPG independent method to isolate procyc form metacyc. You might try this instead.
I use Ficoll gradient to prepare the metacyclics from L. major. If you want more details, I can send you the protocol
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