• Journal of Yeungnam Medical Science
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.54-59
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• 2011

Leptospirosis is a spirochetal infectious disease caused by $Leptospira$ $interrogans$, and may vary in degree from an asymptomatic infection to a severe and fatal illness. The kidney is one of the principal target organs of $Leptospira$. Renal disorders caused by $Leptospira$ infection vary from an abnonnality in urinalysis to acute kidney injury (AKI). Incidence of AKI in severe leptospirosis varies from 40% to 60%. AKI reflects the severity of leptospirosis and is generally accompanied by cholestatic jaundice. The pathophysiology of AKI in leptospirosis consists of hypovolemia, direct tubular toxicity, and rhabdomyolysis. Most patients with acute leptospirosis experience severe myalgias, and show laboratory evidence of mild rhabdomyolysis. However, occurrence of severe rhabdomyolysis is rare. We report here on a patient with leoptospirosis, who had severe rhabdomyolysis and acute kidney injury without jaundice.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.63 no.4
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• pp.378-381
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• 2007

Tsutsugamushi disease (Scrub typhus) is an acute, febrile illness caused by Orientia tsutsugamushi, which is transmitted to humans through chigger bites. Leptospirosis, a febrile disease caused by various pathogenic Leptospira, and is acquired by exposure to contaminated water and soil. Both diseases have been the most common acute febrile diseases in the autumn in Korea for many years. Concomitant leptospirosis and scrub typhus is quite rare. We report a case of a coinfection with leptospirosis and scrub typhus in a 51-year-old male who presented with fever, abdominal pain and acute dyspnea. The patient was diagnosed with as acalculous cholecystitis, acute respiratory distress syndrome, and septic shock caused by the infection. This is the first case report of a coinfection with leptospirosis and scrub typhus in Korea.

• Biomedical Science Letters
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.253-257
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• 2004

The mechanisms by which leptospires caused disease are not well understood. A number of putative virulence factors have been suggested, but with few exceptions their role in pathogenesis remains unclear. In these days, many cases of leptospirosis are diagnosed by serological immunoassay. Leptospirosis is characterized by the histopathology of liver, kidney, heart, and lung, but the electrophoresis fractions of serum protein are not compared. We analyzed total protein, albumin, aspartic aminotranferase (AST), alanine aminotransferase (ALT), alkaline phosphatase (ALP), creatinine and urea nitrogen (UN) in sera of patients diagnosed leptospirosis. Total protein and albumin were decreased in 18.5％ and 31.2％ of patients, respectively. AST, ALT, ALP, UN and creatinine were increased in 90.4％, 66.9％, 28.0％, 15.9％ and 10.8％ of patients, respectively. We performed cellulose acetate membrane electrophoresis (EP) on sera of patients increased both of AST and ALT, and of patients increased both of creatinine and UN. In patients increased both of AST and ALT, and in patients increased both of AST and ALT, the relative percentage of albumin to total protein in patient serum was dcreased in 89.1 ％ of patients. α₁-globulin, α₂-globulin, β-globulin and γ-globulin were increased in 85.1 ％, 75.2％, 33.6％ and 98.0％ of patients, respectively. In patients increased both of creatinine and UN, the relative percentage of albumin to total protein in patient serum was dcreased in 93.8％ of patients. α₁-globulin, α₂-globulin, β-globulin and γ-globulin were increased in 87.5％, 100％, 31.2％ and 93.8％ of patients, respectively. These data indicate that infection of Leptospira causes severe liver damage to most of leptospirosis patients, but doesn't cause renal damage to most of them. The relative rate of serum protein electrophoresis fractions to total protein are not identical with them of typical hepatitis patient.

• Journal of agricultural medicine and community health
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.119-128
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• 1994

This study was performed on 302 cases of leptospirosis, tsutsugamushi disease and hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome(HFRS) which occurred in Chonnam(Do) in 1991 through 1993. The results were as follows : 1. 81.8% of the patients with Leptospirosis and 54.5% of the HFRS patients were men while 61.4% of the patients with tsutsugamushi disease were women. 2. Most patients lived in rural areas(Gun), their educational level was elementary School or lower and their occupations were either farmer or jobless. 3. Peak ages were 40s for leptospirosis(36.4%) and 50s for tsutsugamushi disease and HFRS(32.9% and 36.4% respectively). 4. The high incidence areas of tsutsugamushi disease were northern, eastern and a diagonal line, from northeast to southwest, of the Chonnam area, and these are consistent with a mountainous district. 5. In monthly distribution leptospirosis was higher in Sep. and Oct., and tsutsugamushi disease and HFRS were higher in Oct. and Nov. 6. The first case is occurring and the last case shows up later than in past years.

• Biomedical Science Letters
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.311-316
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• 2010

We studied a comparison of the concentration of biochemical markers in sera of patients hospitalized with high fever (n=296) in Jeonbuk province during the last 2 years (2008 to 2009). The patients were divided into three patient groups of viral hemorrhagic fever (VHF) patient group tested positive for Hantavirus (n=53), leptospirosis (LEP) patient group tested positive for Leptospira interrogans (n=137) and scrub typhus (TSU) patient group tested positive for Orientia tsutsugamushi (n=106). We analyzed the concentration of ALP, AST, ALT, blood urea nitrogen, creatinine and glucose and compared the mean levels of them to normal range, the first sample and last sample. The frequencies of abnormal patient elevated above the upper limit of normal for ALP, AST and ALT were 18~43.4%, 78~97% and 62.3~92.7% in patient groups, and 24.5~47.4% (total protein) and 13.2~50.0% (albumin) of patients in patient groups had decreased below the lower limit of normal. The patients showed higher abnormal levels of glucose in patient groups were 58.5% (viral hemorrhagic fever patient group), 66.4% (leptospirosis patient group), 71.7% (scrub typhus patient group) and 66.9% (total patient group). There were significant difference between the first sample and the last sample in the mean levels of AST (decreased 22.2% in viral hemorrhagic fever patient group, 30.2% in leptospirosis patient group, 20.4% in scrub typhus patient group and 24.1% in total patient group), BUN (43.0% in viral hemorrhagic fever patient group, 41.6% in leptospirosis patient group, 47.4% in scrub typhus patient group and 43.0% in total patient group) and glucose (20.2% viral hemorrhagic fever patient group, 17.9% in leptospirosis patient group, 18.6% in scrub typhus patient group and 18.9% in total patient group) in the first sample and the last sample. According to these results, those diseases may cause liver damage and have high concentration of ALP, AST, ALT and glucose in blood even though the patients get out of the hospital.

• Genomics & Informatics
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.31.1-31.9
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• 2021

Leptospirosis is a zoonotic disease caused by spirochetes from the genus Leptospira. In Thailand, Leptospira interrogans is a major cause of leptospirosis. Leptospirosis patients present with a wide range of clinical manifestations from asymptomatic, mild infections to severe illness involving organ failure. For better understanding the difference between Leptospira isolates causing mild and severe leptospirosis, illumina sequencing was used to sequence genomic DNA in both serotypes. DNA of Leptospira isolated from two patients, one with mild and another with severe symptoms, were included in this study. The paired-end reads were removed adapters and trimmed with Q30 score using Trimmomatic. Trimmed reads were constructed to contigs and scaffolds using SPAdes. Cross-contamination of scaffolds was evaluated by ContEst16s. Prokka tool for bacterial annotation was used to annotate sequences from both Leptospira isolates. Predicted amino acid sequences from Prokka were searched in EggNOG and David gene ontology database to characterize gene ontology. In addition, Leptospira from mild and severe patients, that passed the criteria e-value < 10e^-5 from blastP against virulence factor database, were used to analyze with Venn diagram. From this study, we found 13 and 12 genes that were unique in the isolates from mild and severe patients, respectively. The 12 genes in the severe isolate might be virulence factor genes that affect disease severity. However, these genes should be validated in further study.

• Korean Journal of Veterinary Research
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.209-215
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• 1991

Serological survey were conducted on the leptospiral antibody in domestic animals which were fed in the three rural village occurred human leptospirosis. Names of three villages are Shinnam-li, Shinjeop-li and Jinai-li which are located in near the northeastern part of Yeoju town in Kyunggi province. Total 66 serum samples were collected from the domestic animals in which 12 dairy cows, 10 Korean native cattle, 12 pigs and 32 dogs were included. Leptospiral antibody were detected with 4 different serovars of leptospira living antigens, such as Leptospira icterohaemorrhagiae, L. pomona, L. canicola and L. tarassovi by microscopic agglutination test for each serum sample. The results are obtained as follow. 1. All 66 sera collected from the domestic animals at three villages showed negative reaction with 4 different serovars of leptospiral antigen. 2. Only one serum sample taken from a dairy cow in Shinjeop-li showed a weak positive reaction with Leptospira tarassovi. It is suggest that this positive case is not infected with L. tarassovi, but with vaccination. 3. It is indicated that all domestic animals which wen, fed in the villages occured human leptospirosis were not infected with above 4 different serovars of leptospira at least.

• The Journal of the Korean Society for Microbiology
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.205-210
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• 1986

Serological investigations for the leptospirosis on hospitalized patients in Choonchun Sungsim Hospital during the periods from August to November 1985 and 841 inhabitants of Kangwondo area including Choonchun, Choonsung, Inje, Chulwon, Hwachun, Gosung, Taibaik, Samchuk and Yangju area were carried out. 1. Among 58 hospitalized patients who were suspected as leptospirosis, 10 patients were detected to have antibody against Leptospira. All of positive sera had the highest antibody titer against serogroup Icterohemorrhagiae and most positive sera were also reactive to serogroup Australis and Canicola. Antibody titer of positive sera detected by microscopic agglutination(MA) test were ranging from 1 : 40 to 1 : 2,560. Antibody titer detected by ELISA method were higher than those detected by MAT(ELISA 1 : 400$\sim$1 : 25,600) and IgM titer of positive sera were generally higher than IgG titer. 2, Of 841 inhabitants in 8 area of Kangwondo, 17 persons (2,02%) possessing antibody against Leptospira were detected by ELISA method, IgG titer in positive sera were generally higher than IgM titer. Persons possessing antibody to Leptospira were distributed in both sex and in various age group, and no significant regional and occupational fluctuations were obserbed.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.526-536
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• 2015

Leptospirosis is a worldwide zoonotic disease caused by pathogenic Leptospira, a genus of which more than 250 serovars have been identified. Commercial bacterin vaccines are limited in that they lack both cross-protection against heterologous serovars and long-term protection. This study investigated in mice the immunogenicity of an anti-leptospirosis vaccine, using the outer membrane proteins LipL32 and Loa22 as antigens. The immunogenicity of this vaccine formulation was compared with those induced by vaccines based on LipL32 or Loa22 alone. A DNA-encapsulated chitosan nanoparticle was used for in vivo DNA delivery. Using a unique DNA plasmid expressing both lipL32 and loa22 for vaccination, higher antibody responses were induced than when combining plasmids harboring each gene separately. Therefore, this formulation was used to test the immunogenicity when administered by a heterologous prime (DNA)-boost (protein) immunization regimen. The specific antibody responses against LipL32 (total IgG and IgG1) and Loa22 (IgG1) were higher in mice receiving two antigens in combination than in those vaccinated with a single antigen alone. Although no significant difference in splenic CD4⁺ T cell proliferation was observed among all groups of vaccinated mice, splenocytes from mice vaccinated with two antigens exhibited higher interferon-γ and IL-2 production than when using single antigens alone upon in vitro restimulation. Taken together, the immunogenicity induced by LipL32 and Loa22 antigens in a heterologous primeboost immunization regimen using chitosan as a DNA delivery system induces higher immune response, and may be useful for developing a better vaccine for leptospirosis.

• Korean Journal of Veterinary Research
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• v.60 no.1
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• pp.1-7
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• 2020

We investigated the genotypes of Leptospira spp. detected in symptomatic dogs in Thailand. During April to December 2012, 6 out of 41 client-owned dogs were diagnosed with leptospirosis based on polymerase chain reaction tests. All of the infected dogs showed clinical symptoms related to leptospirosis. Direct genotyping of the causative agent of the canine leptospirosis was conducted from the archival DNA samples extracted from urine or blood of those 6 infected dogs. Sequencing of the partial 16S rRNA and lipL32 genes from all samples identified Leptospira (L.) interrogans as the infecting species. Multilocus sequence typing tests were successful for 2 out of 6 samples. The sequence type (ST) was identified as ST50 for both samples where the profile corresponded to L. interrogans species and Bataviae serogroup. The presence of this genotype of Leptospira has never been reported in Thailand. Thus, our findings showed the existence of ST50 L. interrogans serogroup Bataviae and the ability to cause leptospirosis in dogs in Thailand.