[Serological study of Leishmania clones from experimentally and naturally infected sandflies].

A serological study of Leishmania clones from experimentally and naturally infected sand flies was undertaken. The cloning was done by means of Fonbrun's micromanipulator. Serological studies were conducted according to Adler's method in Safjanova's modification. Among the clones of Phlebotomus papatasi experimentally infected with Leishmania tropica major and L. gymnodactyli four were found to be serologically identical with L. tropica major, and two had close antigene relationships with both initial strains of Leishmania. No clones identical with L. gymnodactyli were found. By means of serological comparison to museum strains of Leishmania heterogeneity of the strains isolated from naturally infected sand flies and great variety of antigenic properties of clones obtained from them have been shown. Thus, among clones of Ph. caucasicus four are identical with L. donovani, one is closely related to Leptomonas pessoai and one displays no antigenic relationships to any standard strain of Leishmania. Two clones from naturally infected Ph. papatasi are identical with L. tropica major, one displays close antigenic relationships with L. tropica major and L. donovani and one could not be identified. The question is raised on the necessity to study possible mechanisms of genetic information exchange to explain the appearance of clones with mixed properties.