To the Editor: Leptospirosis is a major emerging infectious disease with a worldwide distribution (1). It is a systemic disease of humans and domestic animals (2). Regarded globally as a zoonosis because it is acquired by humans from contact with animals or from water contaminated with the urine of infected animals, it is presumed to be the most widespread zoonotic disease in the world (1,2). S...

Leptospirosis is a worldwide zoonotic disease that is caused by Gram-negative spirochaetes, Leptospira species. Affected animals excrete the organism in the urine into the environment and act as a source of infection. Cattle are maintenance hosts for some serovars of leptospirosis and are important in the transmission of the infection to humans. At post mortem examination, affected cattle show ...

We read with interest the study reported by Ayral and others entitled “Distribution of Leptospira serogroups in cattle herds and dogs in France.” Ayral and others concluded that the inventory of infecting Leptospira serogroups revealed that current vaccines in France are not fully capable of preventing leptospirosis. In total, 394 cattle were diagnosed with clinical leptospirosis, and the resul...

Pathogenic species of Leptospira cause leptospirosis, a bacterial zoonotic disease with a global distribution affecting over one million people annually. Reservoir hosts of leptospirosis, including rodents, dogs, and cattle, exhibit little to no signs of disease but shed large numbers of organisms in their urine. Transmission occurs when mucosal surfaces or abraded skin come into contact with i...

Anchoring of proteins to membranes by lipid modification is a universal strategy of both prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells. The spirochaetes represent a distinct bacterial phylum that have utilized the lipoprotein design extensively as evidenced by genome-sequencing studies revealing a large number of different paralogous families of lipoprotein genes, encoding 22 potential lipoproteins in Trepo...