BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVES Leptospirosis, a zoonosis with a worldwide distribution is an acute febrile illness caused by spirochaetes of the pathogenic Leptospira interrogans. Microscopic agglutination test (MAT), the reference method for diagnosis was successively done to evaluate the modified ELISA which was developed with the recombinant LipL32 antigen for the detection of anti-leptospiral anti...

An investigation was undertaken to assess the present importance of leptospiral infections in Northern Ireland, and in particular to look for evidence of infection by leptospiral serotypes other than L. icterohaemorrhagiae and L. canicola. Blood samples from 335 patients, sent to the laboratory for a variety of tests, were examined. After initial screening with five groups of pooled antigens, t...

Leptospirosis is a re-emerging tropical infectious disease caused by pathogenic Leptospira spp. The different host innate immune responses are partially related to the different severities of leptospirosis. In this study, we employed transcriptomics and cytokine arrays to comparatively calculate the responses of murine peritoneal macrophages (MPMs) and human peripheral blood monocytes (HBMs) to...

It is well known that Leptospira vaccine prevents the disease. However specificity for serovars limits the efficacy of killed whole cell vaccines. Leptospiral antigens that induce cross-protective immunity to the various serovars are sought as new vaccine candidates. In this paper, we have summarized both past and current findings about leptospiral antigens that are conserved among pathogenic l...

Leptospirosis caused by Leptospira is a zoonotic disease of global importance but it is considered as an emerging or re-emerging infectious disease in many areas in the world. Until now, the mechanisms about pathogenesis and transmission of Leptospira remains poorly understood. As eukaryotic and prokaryotic proteins can be denatured in adverse environments and chaperone-protease/peptidase compl...

Leptospirosis is an emerging infectious disease caused by pathogenic species of Leptospira. In this work, we report the cloning, expression, purification, and characterization of two predicted leptospiral outer membrane proteins, LIC11469 and LIC11030. The LIC11469 protein is well conserved among leptospiral strains, while LIC11030 was identified only in Leptospira interrogans. We confirmed by ...

A microtechnique has been developed and adapted successfully to the microscopic agglutination test with live antigens for detection of leptospiral antibodies. Simultaneous titrations were performed by the conventional microscopic agglutination test and the microtechnique. When the microtechnique was used to screen 50 unknown leptospiral strains with a battery of hyperimmune sera, 98% agreement ...