Short report: fluorescent Leishmania: application to anti-leishmanial drug testing.

Classic techniques for detecting the susceptibility of Leishmania to different drugs are time-consuming, laborious, and require the use of macrophages. The use of flow cytometry for monitoring Leishmania susceptibility to drugs is beginning to be implemented. Using green fluorescent protein (GFP), we have improved and simplified the screening procedure. We introduced a GFP marker into field strains of Leishmania causing kala-azar (visceral leishmaniasis) and explored the suitability of transgenic L. donovani promastigotes that constitutively express GFP in their cytoplasm as target cells for in vitro screening of anti-leishmanial drugs.