Selective whole-genome amplification of Leishmania braziliensis from patient biopsies

Leishmania braziliensis is the main cause of cutaneous leishmaniasis in Brazil. Due to limitations in culturing, it is important to study the parasite in a culture-independent manner. We use selective whole genome amplification (SWGA) to explore the parasite genomic diversity directly from patient biopsies. This method is inexpensive and can be broadly used to generate parasite genome sequence data from samples of different host backgrounds and different Leishmania target species. We found high diversity among the L. braziliensis genomes from Bahia, Brazil, which is correlated with geographic location suggesting that L. braziliensis populations are isolated by distance.