Análisis cuantitativo del crecimiento y cambio morfométrico en poblaciones de Leishmania chagasi y Trypanosoma cruzi mantenidos en cultivos axénicos puros y mixtos

the relations established among genera of the trypanosomatidae family in coexisting conditions in the same environment may be linked to inter-population compensatory answers that include morphological (differences among stages) and morphometrical (measurable difference) changes. the quantitative analysis of these answers in leishmania chagasi and trypanosoma cruzi pure axenic cultures, as well as in l. chagasi - t. cruzi axenic iso-mixtures in vitro maintained has not been approached, and consequently, potentially useful biological particularities in the control of these important human parasites are unknown. every other day culture samples were fixed, stained, observed, digitalized and quantitatively processed. in addition to quantify, the population densities and the appearance-disappearance stage (morphotypes) dynamics, the numeric magnitudes of the morphometric variables were recorded and later analyzed with multivariate statistical techniques. the results indicate specific changes in the investigated variables, as well as morphometric heterogeneity between the same morphotypes of the same genera when maintained in pure or mixed cultivation. the morphometric change models for l. chagasi and t. cruzi in pure culture differ from the models of morphometric change in mixed cultivation (l. chagasi-t. cruzi). the biometric methodologies discriminate in morphometric terms populations of the same stage (morfotype) in different environments.