Objective: To study Leishmania infection in cats and its potential role in transmission of the disease to human by parasitological, serological and molecular methods in Ahar District, East Azerbaijan Province. Methods: In this study, 65 cats from different parts of Ahar Province were trapped. The cats were anesthetized with chloroform and blood samples were taken from jugular vein and tested by direct agglutination test. Spleen and liver smear samples were prepared in order to microscopically examine these organs, and also cultured in Novy-MacNeal-Nicolle and Roswell Park Memorial Institute 1 640 media. Finally, spleen tissue DNA was extracted to perform polymerase chain reaction analysis. Results: In direct agglutination test, 4 (6%) cats had a positive titer, while 14 (22%) cats had a titer of 1:80 which was suspected for an infection and 47 (72%) cats were negative. Culture results were negative and in polymerase chain reaction no amplification was observed. Conclusions: We found no case of feline visceral leishmaniasis. It needs more extensive studies by using a larger number of cats to firmly establish leishmaniasis in this area.

Objective To evaluated the relationship between the genetic variations at IL-8 +2767 position with VL pathogenesis among Iranian patients. Methods Three groups including patients with VL clinical presentation and leishmania seropositive (n = 124), patients seropositive but without clinical presentation (n = 82) and healthy controls (n = 63) were selected to conduct this cross-sectional study. Polymorphism at +2767 position of IL-8 was investigated using PCR-RFLP techniques. Anti-leishmania antibody titration was evaluated by the immunoflorescence technique. Results We observed higher significant frequencies +2767 A/A and A/T genotypes in Group 1 compared to Group 2 and healthy controls (P = 0.001). Also, patients in Group 1 carrying A/A genotype showed higher titer of anti-leishmania antibody than patients with A/T and T/T genotypes (P = 0.05). The validity of the data was analyzed using Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium and one way analysis of variance (ANOVA), as well as χ