Host competence of African rodents and for .

Cutaneous leishmaniasis caused by is a typical zoonosis circulating in rodents. In Sub-Saharan Africa the reservoirs remain to be identified, although has been detected in several rodent species including members of the genera and . However, differentiation of true reservoir hosts from incidental hosts requires in-depth studies both in the field and in the laboratory, with the best method for testing the infectiousness of hosts to biting vectors being xenodiagnosis. Here we studied experimental infections of three strains in , and the infections were initiated either with sand fly-derived or with culture-derived promastigotes. Inoculated rodents were monitored for several months and tested by xenodiagnoses for their infectiousness to the natural vector of in Sub-Saharan Africa. The distribution and load of parasites were determined using qPCR from the blood, skin and viscera samples. The attractiveness of and to was tested by pair-wise comparisons. Three strains used significantly differed in infectivity: the Middle Eastern strain infected a low proportion of rodents, while two Sub-Saharan isolates (LV109, LV110) infected a high percentage of animals and LV110 also produced higher parasite loads in all host species. All three rodent species maintained parasites of the LV109 strain for 20-25 weeks and were able to infect without apparent health complications: infected animals showed only temporary swellings or changes of pigmentation at the site of inoculation. However, the higher infection rates, more generalized distribution of parasites and longer infectiousness period to sand flies in suggest that this species plays the more important reservoir role in the life cycle of in Sub-Saharan Africa. species may serve as potential reservoirs in seasons/periods of low abundance of .