Achievement of constitutive fluorescent pLEXSY-egfp Leishmania braziliensis and its application as an alternative method for drug screening in vitro.

BACKGROUND: Gene reporter-fluorescent cells have emerged as alternative method for drug screening.

OBJECTIVE: Achievement of constitutive expression of fluorescent protein GFP by Leishmania braziliensis as alternative method for drug screening.

METHODS: L. braziliensis-GFP was generated using Leishmania tarentolae pLEXSY-egfp for constitutive expression of GFP. Fluorescent cells were selected and subjected to standardisation tests of anti-promastigote and anti-intracellular amastigote assays.

FINDINGS: Our results showed that L. braziliensis-GFP method is faster and more sensitive than Allamar Blue-resazurin.

MAIN CONCLUSION: Transfected parasites maintained stable fluorescence after successive in vitro passages and pLEXSY system can be used to achieve non-L. tarentolae fluorescent cells.