Veterinary Parasitology 192 (2013) 118–128 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Veterinary Parasitology jou rn al h om epa ge: www.elsevier.com/locate/vetpar Experimental model for reproduction of canine visceral leishmaniosis by Leishmania infantum J. Fernández-Cotrina a,∗ , V. Iniesta a , S. Belinchón-Lorenzo a , R. Mu˜ noz-Madrid a , F. Serrano a , J.C. Parejo b , L. Gómez-Gordo c , M. Soto d , C. Alonso d , L.C. Gómez-Nieto a a LeishmanCeres Laboratory (GLP Compliance Certified), Unidad de Parasitología y Enfermedades Parasitarias, Facultad de Veterinaria, Universidad de Extremadura, Avda. de la Universidad s/n, 10003 Cáceres, Spain b Unidad de Genética, Facultad de Veterinaria, Universidad de Extremadura, Avda. de la Universidad s/n, 10003 Cáceres, Spain c Unidad de Histología y Anatomía Patológica, Facultad de Veterinaria, Universidad de Extremadura, Avda. de la Universidad s/n, 10003 Cáceres, Spain d Centro de Biología Molecular Severo Ochoa, CSIC-UAM, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 28049 Madrid, Spain a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 4 July 2012 Received in revised form 2 October 2012 Accepted 3 October 2012 Keywords: Leishmania infantum Dog Experimental infection Disease reproduction Animal model a b s t r a c t In this report an experimental model of Leishmania infantum (L. infantum) infection in dogs is described. The data presented are derived from an overall and comparative analysis of the clinical outcomes of three groups of dogs intravenously infected with 500,000 promastig- otes on different dates (2003, 2006 and 2008). The parasites used for challenge were isolated from a dog having a patent form of leishmaniosis, classified as MCAN/ES/1996/BCN150 zymodeme MON-1. Late-log-phase promastigote forms derived from cultured amastig- otes obtained from the spleen of the heavily infected hamsters were used for infection. Only one single infective dose was administered to each dog. After challenge, the animals were monitored for 12 months. To analyze the disease outcome, several biopathological, immunological and parasitological end-points were considered. The analysis of the infected dogs indicated that the development of the clinical disease was very similar in the three experimental challenges, as shown by the immune response, the parasite load and the clin- ical and histopathological lesions detected at necropsy. A high similarity was also observed between the disease development after the experimental challenge and the one reported to occur in endemic natural infection areas, as various degrees of susceptibility to the disease and even resistance were observed in the experimentally infected animals. We believe that this challenge model faithfully reproduces and mimics the course of a natural infection and that it could be used as a suitable tool for analyzing the efficacy of anti-Leishmania drugs and vaccines. © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Visceral leishmaniosis (VL) has not received the atten- tion it deserved because until late 1940s the disease was considered to be mainly a local problem, and the world’s attention was engaged in tackling highly fatal and epidemic ∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +34 927257131; fax: +34 927257110. E-mail addresses: jfernandez@unex.es, leishmanceres@gmail.com (J. Fernández-Cotrina). bacterial and viral infections (Garg and Dube, 2006). Atten- tion was given to VL after its recognition as re-emerging zoonosis. For the understanding of the role that the host immune response has in the onset and the maintenance of the susceptibility and resistance to leishmaniosis, the murine model of Leishmania infection has been particularly useful and largely described (Garg and Dube, 2006; Pereira and Alves, 2008; Sharma and Singh, 2009; Gupta and Nishi, 2011). Dogs, however, may considered to be a more appro- priate model to study the potential effects of drugs and vaccines than mice, since the disease pattern in dogs is 0304-4017/$ – see front matter © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.vetpar.2012.10.002