American Leishmania spp: Formycin B treatment of cutaneous leishmaniasis in mice

Abstract

Using foot-pad infection of female C57BL/6, DBA/2J and NMRI-IVIC mice as an animal model for American cutaneous leishmaniasis (ACL), we evaluated the inhibitory effect of Formycin B (FoB) on the infection produced by 7 different Leishmania isolates. When treatment was initiated some days, or even some weeks, after infection a significant leishmanistatic effect was detected on mice infected with all Leishmania isolates, which reached 30–55 weeks for some isolates. The optimal dose schedule was 1·25 mg/kg body weight/day, injected intraperitoneally for 20 consecutive days. Significant differences in the sensitivity of various Leishmania spp. to FoB were found, either in vivo, or in vitro where a high [³H]FoB incorporation rate was found only for certain Leishmania isolates. The low toxicity of this drug and the sensitivity of the 7 Leishmania isolates tested suggest that FoB could be useful in the treatment of ACL.