Leptospirosis is caused by pathogenic leptospires, posing a significant public health problem. Host susceptibility to Leptospira infection is a multifactorial trait, and the host's genetic background can influence both the establishment of infection and the severity of the disease. Complement Factor H (FH) plays a crucial role in the interaction between pathogenic bacteria and the host.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEur J Clin Microbiol Infect Dis
October 2024
Purpose: The current diagnostic methods for leptospirosis diagnosis are technically complex and expensive, with limited applicability to specialized laboratories. Furthermore, they lack diagnostic accuracy in the acute stage of the disease, which coincides with a period when antibiotics are highly effective. New simple and accurate tests are mandatory to decentralize and improve diagnosis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFKnowledge about the life cycle and survival mechanisms of leptospires in the environment is scarce, particularly regarding the environmental factors associated with their presence in ecosystems subject to livestock farming, where precipitation, seasonal floods, and river overflows could act as facilitators of leptospire dispersion. This study aimed to identify and study the presence of spp. in the Lower Delta of the Paraná River and describe the physical, chemical, and hydrometeorological conditions associated with their presence in wetland ecosystems impaired by livestock raising intensification.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMost of the available genotyping methods were applied and evaluated in isolates and only few of them in a relevant sample size of blood specimens but not of sera. The objective of this study was to evaluate the utility of one partial 16S rRNA gene sequencing assay (16S rRNA) and an optimized. Multilocus sequence typing scheme (MLST) for typing directly in serum samples.
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