author(s)
Sayena Rafizadeh, Mehrzad Saraei, Mohammad Reza Abai, Mohammad Ali Oshaghi, Mehdi Mohebali, Amir Peymani, Taghi Naserpour Farivar, Hassan Bakhshi, Alireza Akrami, Yavar Rassi

abstract
Zoonotic cutaneous leishmaniasis (ZCL) due to Leishmania major is a great public health problem in the Old World. Rodents are important reservoir of causative agent of disease is widely distributed in arid and savannah regions. Esfaryen district is one of the most important endemic foci of zoonotic cutaneous leishmaniasis (ZCL) in Northeast of Iran. To identify the reservoir(s) of Leishmania in this focus, a total of 44 rodents were collected using Sherman traps during September to December 2013. They were identified as Rhombomys opimus Lichtenstein (72.7%) and Meriones libycus Lichtenstein (27.3%). Microscopic investigation on blood smear of the animals for amastigote parasites revealed 32 (72.7%) rodents of R. opimus infected with amastigote. L. major infection in these animals was then confirmed by polymerase chain reaction against internal transcribed spacer ribosomal DNA (rDNA) loci of the parasite followed by restriction fragment length polymorphism. Further, sequence analysis of 297 bp of ITS1-rDNA loci revealed the presence of L. major in R. opimus. This is the first molecular report of L. major infection within R. opimus in this region. Our study showed that R. opimus is the most important host reservoir for maintenance of the parasite source in the area.