Random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) analysis of Lutzomyia longipalpis laboratory populations

Author(s): DiaS Edelberto S., FORTES-DIAS Consuelo L., StitEler John M., PERKINS Peter V., Lawyer Phillip G.
Keywords: RAPD-PCR, Fingerprintings, Sand fly, Lutzomyia, Genotyping
Journal: Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo
Year: 1998
Full text: http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0036-46651998000100010
Publisher: Instituto de Medicina Tropical
Abstract: The phlebotomine sand fly Lutzomyia longipalpis has been incriminated as a vector of American visceral leishmaniasis, caused by Leishmania chagasi. However, some evidence has been accumulated suggesting that it may exist in nature not as a single but as a species complex. Our goal was to compare four laboratory reference populations of L. longipalpis from distinct geographic regions at the molecular level by RAPD-PCR. We screened genomic DNA for polymorphic sites by PCR amplification with decamer single primers of arbitrary nucleotide sequences. One primer distinguished one population (Marajó Island, Pará State, Brazil) from the other three (Lapinha Cave, Minas Gerais State, Brazil; Melgar, Tolima Department, Colombia and Liberia, Guanacaste Province, Costa Rica). The population-specific and the conserved RAPD-PCR amplified fragments were cloned and shown to differ only in number of internal repeats.