Producing a local strain of genetic modified Leishmania tropica parasites expressing GFP protein

Abstract

Green fluorescent protein (GFP)- transfected parasites have been widely used as a tool for studying diseases pathogenicity in several animal models, and the application of these transfectants in drug screening assays has increased recently. This study reports generation of transgenic parasite (Leishmania tropica) constitutively expressing GFP. linearized cassette containing gfp gene was stably integrated from the expression construct pLEXSY-GFP-sat2.1 into Syrian isolate of wild-type L. tropica genome, 18srRNA locus, by homologous recombination. For the first time in Syria, Transfection and integration of GFP was successfully carried out, and the primary phenotype observations of parasite by fluorescent microscopy has shown that recombinant L. tropica^GFP was successfully produced GFP protein into cytoplasm. this genetic modified strain could be exploited for a wide range of

research applications in the next few years.