Detection of Asian-Type from Inhabiting Tver Province (Russia): A Sympatric Region for and .

, a hard tick-borne relapsing fever agent, was sampled in and ticks from the Tver province in Russia (a sympatric region of both tick species) and examined by TaqMan-PCR targeting the 16S rRNA gene. was detected in 4 out of 168 ticks: 2 out of 58 ticks (infection rate 2.9%) and 2 out of 110 ticks (1.

Molecular and phenotypic characterization of Leptospira johnsonii sp. nov., Leptospira ellinghausenii sp. nov. and Leptospira ryugenii sp. nov. isolated from soil and water in Japan.

In a previous study, 50 of 132 soil samples collected throughout Japan were found to be Leptospira-positive. In the present study, three strains identified in the collected specimens, three, E8, E18 and YH101, were found to be divergent from previously described Leptospira species according to 16S ribosomal RNA gene sequence analysis. These three strains have a helical shape similar to that of typical Leptospira and were not re-isolated from experimental mice inoculated with the cultured strains.