Detection of Leishmania RNA Virus in Leishmania Parasites
Figure 7
Screening for LRV in freshly-isolated human L. braziliensis.
A. Dot blot analysis of two parasite samples obtained from separate lesion biopsies in an infected patient: Lb 2169 and Lb 2192. Live parasites (1 to 4 µg total proteins) were spotted on a nitrocellulose membrane for LRV dsRNA detection by dot blot (J2 antibody). Lg M4147 LRVhigh and LRVneg were used as positive and negative controls. Upper panel: dsRNA detection by dot blot (J2). Lower panel: verification of protein quantity by Ponceau staining. B. J2 anti-dsRNA analysis of Lb 2169 by fluorescence microscopy. Green: dsRNA (J2 Ab). Blue: DAPI. C. Isolation of viral genomic dsRNA from the Lb 2169 strain. Intact and DNase-digested total nucleic acids from Lb 2169 parasites and Lg M4147 LRVhigh as a control, were analyzed by gel electrophoresis (similarly to Figure 1A). Note: with high resolution gels such as presented here (in contrast to Figure 1), the viral genome often appears as a doublet.