Leptospira interrogans serovar pomona was successfully isolated from cattle urine in the western Transvaal after an abortion storm had occurred. Direct inoculation of EMJH medium proved the most successful method. The selective agent, 5-fluorouracil, was most effective in controlling contamination when used at the 0,4 mg/ml level. The strain isolated was pathogenic in hamsters, but specific les...

Monoclonal antibodies with two kinds of specificities, produced against Leptospira interrogans serovar pomona, were studied by agglutination and immunoblotting. Antibodies reacted either exclusively with serovar pomona or with all members of the Pomona serogroup, but none of the antibodies reacted with representative serovars of other serogroups. Both antibodies recognized epitopes on purified ...

A guinea pig-lethal line of Leptospira interrogans serovar copenhageni strain Shibaura, but not an avirulent line of the same strain, moved in larger numbers toward hemoglobin than toward distilled water (control) in a U-shaped polypropylene tube. L. interrogans serovar lai strains 017 and KH-1, which were also guinea pig lethal, showed a similar move to hemoglobin. No such move toward hemoglob...

background and objectives: leptospirosis is an important zoonotic disease caused by leptospira interrogans . leptospirosis leads to economical losses in dairy farm industry. the objective of this study was to evaluate the pathogenic serovars of leptospira interrogans in dairy cattle herds of shahrekord by pcr. materials and methods: two hundred samples (100 urine and 100 blood) were collected f...

BACKGROUND Leptospirosis is a worldwide zoonosis that is endemic in tropical areas, such as Reunion Island. The species Leptospira interrogans is the primary agent in human infections, but other pathogenic species, such as L. kirschner and L. borgpetersenii, are also associated with human leptospirosis. METHODS AND FINDINGS In this study, a melting curve analysis of the products that were amp...

The use of DNA constructs encoding leptospiral proteins is a promising new approach for vaccination against leptospirosis. In previous work we determined that immunization with hemolysis-associated protein 1 (Hap1) (LipL32) expressed by adenovirus induced significant protection against a virulent Leptospira challenge in gerbils. To avoid the use of the adenovirus vector, we checked for clinical...

The authors describe work in progress at the laboratory in Brescia, Italy, on the application of molecular methods to the diagnosis of leptospirosis. This work includes the following: a) Development of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assays capable of amplifying specific deoxyribonucleic acid fragments from most Leptospira interrogans strains. b) Development of a microtitre-based assay for rapi...

All known ribosomes of procaryotic organisms are made up of three rRNA components that are 23, 16, and 5S in size. We now report that in some Leptospira interrogans strains, the classical 23S rRNA is further processed to generate 14 and 17S rRNAs. This processing step was previously known to occur only in some eucaryotes and in a small group of procaryotes. The implications of this finding are ...

The genomic structures of spirochete species are not well characterized, and genetic studies on these organisms have been hampered by lack of a genetic exchange mechanism in these bacteria. In view of these observations, pulsed-field gel electrophoresis was used to examine the genomes of Leptospira species. Live cells, prepared in agarose plugs, were lysed in situ, and the DNA was analyzed unde...

Leptospirosis is one of the most common zoonotic diseases in the world, resulting in high morbidity and mortality in humans and affecting global livestock production. Most infections are caused by either Leptospira borgpetersenii or Leptospira interrogans, bacteria that vary in their distribution in nature and rely on different modes of transmission. We report the complete genomic sequences of ...