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Traditional molecular and biochemical methods, such as schizodeme analysis, karyotyping, DNA fingerprinting, and enzyme electrophoretic profiles, have shown a large variability among Trypanosoma cruzi isolates. In contrast to those results, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification of sequences from the 24S␣ ribosomal RNA gene and from the mini-exon gene nontranscribed spacer indicated a dimorphism among T. cruzi isolates, which enabled the definition of two major parasite lineages. In the present study, 86 T. cruzi field stocks (68 isolated from humans with defined presentations of Chagas' disease and 18 from triatomines) derived from four Brazilian geographic areas were typed by the PCR assay based on the DNA sequences of the mini-exon and 24S␣ rRNA genes. These stocks were ordered into the two major T. cruzi lineages. Lineage 1 was associated mainly with human isolates and lineage 2 with the sylvatic cycle of the parasite.

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Leishmania naiffi was isolated from 10 out of 64 armadillos (Dasypus novemcinctus) examined in Amazonas, Pará and Rondônia States in the Brazilian Amazon Region. The isolates were obtained in culture from samples of liver (3), spleen (3), lymph nodes (2), skin (1) and blood (1) from the infected animals. Heavy infections with the same parasite were detected for the first time in Psychodopygus squamiventris, a common man-biting phlebotomine, in Amazonas and Pará. A new case of cutaneous leishmaniasis caused by L. naiffi is described from the Manaus area, making a total of three known cases of human infection by this parasite.