Volume: 50 Issue: 1
Year: 2019, Page: 35-39,
Received: Jan. 23, 2018 Accepted: March 3, 2018 Published: Jan. 1, 2019
Leptospirosis is an acute febrile zoonotic disease with worldwide distribution and has become an important global health concern. The disease is endemic in southern parts of India, especially in Kerala. The laboratory diagnosis of leptospirosis is based on bacteriological, molecular and serological detection methods. The present study was envisagedtocomparethemoleculartechniques for detection of leptospires with the traditional isolation and serological methods. Out of 100 blood samples tested, 27 were found to be positive for microscopic agglutination test (MAT) and from eight samples, leptospires could be isolated successfully in EllinghausenMcCullogh-Johnson-Harris media (EMJH). MAT positive samples when subjected to polymerase chain reaction (PCR) targeting the lipl32 gene of Leptospira, two samples gave positive amplicons of about 767 bp. Even though, the gold standard test for diagnosisof leptospirosis is isolation and identification of the causative organism, it is laborious, time consuming and requires technical expertise. Thus, the present study recommends the use of MAT for the identification of infecting serovars of Leptospira, while PCR forms an effective tool to provide a rapid diagnosis, particularly in acute infections.
Keywords: Leptospirosis, isolation, Microscopic agglutination test, Polymerase chain reaction, lipl32, EMJH, Canine, Kerala.
Adesiysun, A.A., Huli-Jackson, C., Mootoo, N., Haisall, S., Bennett, R., Clarke, N.R., Whittington, C.U. and Seepersadsingh, N. 2006. Sero-epidemiology of canine leptospirosis in Trinidad: Serovars,implications for vaccination and public health. J. Med. 53: 91-99.
Ambily, R. 2012. Diagnosis of canine leptospirosis using outer membrane protein based enzyme linked immunosorbent assay. Ph.D. thesis, Kerala Veterinary and Animal Sciences University, Pookode, 135p.
Freitas, J.C.D., Silva, F.G.D., Oliveira, R.C.D., Delbem, Á.C.B., Müller, E.E., Alves, L.A. and Teles, P.S. 2004. Isolation of Leptospira spp from dogs, bovine and swine naturally infected. Ciência rural. 34:853-856.
Krishna, S.V. 2012.Immunoprofiling of canine leptospiral outer membrane proteins.M.V.Sc thesis, Kerala Veterinary and Animal Sciences University, Pookode, 82p.
Levett, P.N., Morey, R.E., Galloway, R.L., Steigerwalt, A.G. and Mayer, L.W.2005. Detection of pathogenic leptospires by real-time quantitative PCR. J. of .Med. Microbiol. 54: 45-49.
Merien, F., Amouriax, P., Perolat, P., Baranton, G. and Saint Girons, I. 1992. Polymerase chain reaction for detection of Leptospira sp. in clinical samples. J. Clin. Microbiol. 30: 2219-2224.
Obiegala, A., Woll, D., Karnath, C., Silaghi, C., Schex, S., Ebbauer, S. and Pfeffer, M. 2016. Prevalence and Genotype Allocation of Pathogenic Leptospira Species in Small Mammals from Various Habitat Types in Germany PLOS Neglected.Trop. Dis. 10:1371.
Office Internatinale de Epizootics. 2005. Leptospirosis: In Manual of Diagnostic tests and vaccine. 4th edition., Paris.
Ramadas, P., Meerarani, S., Senthilkumar, A., Venkatesh, M.D. and Nachimuthu, K. 1997. Rapid diagnosis of leptospirosis by polymerase chain reaction. Indian. Vet. J. 74: 457-460.
Soman, M. 2004. Prevalance of leptospirosis in animals in and around Thrissur. M.V.Sc. thesis, Kerala Agricultural University, Thrissur, 108p.
Thiermann, A.B. 1984. Isolation of leptospires in diagnosis of leptospirosis. Modern Vet. Practice. 5: 758-759.
Van Eys, G.J.J.M., Grave Kamp, C., Gerritsen, M.J., Quint, W., Corneliseen, M.T.E., Schegget, J.T. and Tersptra, W.J. 1989. Detection of leptospires in urine by polymerase chain reaction. J. Clin. Microbiol. 27: 2258-2262.
Vishak, C.R.2015. Comparison of the diagnostic efficacies of recombinant lipl21 and lipl32 proteins in canine leptospirosis. M.V.Sc. thesis, Kerala Veterinary and Animal Sciences University, Pookode,88p.
World Health Organization (1999). Leptospirosis worldwide, 1999.Wkly Epidemiol Rec 74: 237–242.
© 2019 Akhila Chandran et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited