Amino-acid and glucose utilization of Leishmania donovani and L. braziliensis.

The availability of a defined medium (STEIGER & STEIGER, 1976) has enabled studies on the nutritional requirements of promastigotes of L. donovani and L. braziliensis (STEIGER & STEIGER, 1977). As outlined elsewhere (STEIGER & MESHNICK, 1977), the present paper describes preliminary experiments dealing with the utilization of amino-acids and glucose by these two Leishmania species. The data are compared to those obtained with Trypanosoma (CROSS et al., 1975a,b; BRUN & JENNI, 1977) and are discussed in relation to the nutrition of Leishmania.