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. 2025 Aug 21;18(1):135.
doi: 10.1186/s12920-025-02198-1.

First report of Leishmania RNA virus 2 and its high genetic diversity in cutaneous leishmaniasis cases from Ilam Province, Iran

Reza Saberi  1   2 , Amirmohammad Fallahi Lima  3   4 , Homa Hajjaran  5 , Mahdi Fakhar  3   6
Affiliations

First report of Leishmania RNA virus 2 and its high genetic diversity in cutaneous leishmaniasis cases from Ilam Province, Iran

Reza Saberi et al. BMC Med Genomics. .

Abstract

Introduction: Cutaneous Leishmaniasis (CL) is a vector-borne disease caused by a protozoan parasite and considered a public health challenge in many countries, including Iran. Recent research has focused on the role of Leishmania RNA virus (LRV) in the pathogenesis of cutaneous and mucosal forms of leishmaniasis. This study assessed the presence of LRV2 and its genotype diversity among isolates in Ilam province, western Iran, an old focus of Zoonotic CL.

Material and method: Thirty-two lesion specimens were collected from CL patients and subjected to PCR analysis using species-specific primers for Leishmania identification and detection of LRV2. The amplified products were sequenced, and phylogenetic analysis was performed.

Result: All samples were identified as L. major. The PCR showed that 4 of 32 (12.5%) clinical cultures were LRV2 positive. Phylogenetic analysis revealed high nucleotide sequence identity (96-99%) with LRV2 isolated from L. major strains from Iran, Turkey, and Uzbekistan. The four sequences analyzed revealed four distinct haplotypes, with high genetic variability among the isolates.

Conclusion: This study provides the first identification and phylogenetic analysis of LRV2 in CL patients from western Iran and highlights the extensive genetic diversity among LRV2 isolates across different regions, which may have significant implications for disease pathogenesis, transmission patterns, and clinical manifestations.

Keywords: Leishmania; Leishmania RNA virus; Genotype; Ilam.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration. Ethics approval and consent to participate: The project was approved to be in accordance to the ethical principles and the national norms and standards for conducting Medical Research in Iran by Research Ethics Committees of Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences (IR.MAZUMS.REC.1404.009). Written informed consent was obtained from all adult participants as well as from the parents of children, in alignment with established protocol and the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki were fully observed throughout the conduct of this study. Consent for publication: Not Applicable. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Digestion pattern of the ITS1 region of Leishmania parasite using HaeIII Enzyme, Line M: 100 bp DNA ladder marker; Lines 1–7: Patient samples from the current study, each displaying the HaeIII digestion pattern characteristic of L. major
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
A phylogenetic tree was constructed to compare the LRV2 sequences obtained in this study with other LRV sequences retrieved from GenBank. The maximum likelihood tree was generated based on the sequence alignment, employing the Tamura 3-parameter model
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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