CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

Leptospirosis is an emerging infectious disease and a zoonosis of global distribution that has been recently identified as a public and animal health problem. According to the lack of information related to the current epidemiological situation of this disease in Argentina, the aim of this work was to perform a genotypic characterization of Leptospira interrogans through the application of the multilocus sequence typing (MLST) strategy, recently described by Thaipadungpanit and colleagues. The MLST strategy used allows the comparison of profiles obtained from locate isolates with the global database available in the website: http://leptospira.mlst.net. We have analyzed isolates of L. interrogans that were characterized serologically as L. interrogans serovar Pomona and L. interrogans serovar Icterohaemorrhagiae most of them were isolated from bovine and porcine hosts and from distinct argentine regions between 1960 and 2008. Among the different isolates, the predominant sequence type (ST) was ST37 that have grouped the isolates from the main cattle production region in Argentina. This profile was also identified in Thailand, Jamaica, Netherlands, Australia and Brazil and the isolates were from humans, dogs and opossums, being the australian isolate also described as L. interrogans serovar Pomona. In addition, this ST is present in our country since 1960 indicating that this isolate belongs to a biologically successful clone that may have survival advantages in a detrimental environment. This study constitutes the first report applying MLSTs strategy for the molecular typing of Leptospira sp. in Argentina. Moreover, molecular typing is a useful tool for the improvement of disease control programmes and for the generation of new vaccines based on the predominant circulating serovars.

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