Abstract:
Leptospirosis is a wide spread zoonotic disease caused by pathogenic leptospires.
This disease is endemic in certain regions, especially in the northeastern region of
Thailand. The aim of this study was to investigate the clonal spread of leptospires from
rats to humans during the outbreak in the northeastern region of Thailand in 1999-2000.
NotI restriction enzyme successfully differentiated 26 PFGE patterns from 27
serovars. The discriminatory power of these strains was 0.99. Each of the 27 serovars
gave a unique pattern, except serovars Copenhageni and Icterohaemorrhagiae, which had
the same pattern. In addition, all strains had an individual single clone.
All rat isolates were identified by serotypic methods and further characterized by
PFGE. The Forty rat isolates consisted of 2 isolates as serovar Australis, 4 isolates as
serovar Autumnalis, 8 isolates as serovar Bataviae and 26 as serovar Pyrogenes.
Fingerprints of these isolates showed 5 major patterns. Patterns I, II and III were produced
for serovars Pyrogenes, Bataviae and Autumnalis. Patterns IV and V were yielded by
serovar Australis. Pattern I was similar to serovar Pyrogenes strain Salinem from human
isolate, at 70% similarity, and pattern II was similar to reference serovar Bataviae strain
Van Tienam, at 100% similarity. Patterns III and IV & V were different from reference
serovars Autumnalis strain Akiyami A, at 28% similarity, and Australis strain Ballico, at
37% similarity, respectively. These findings indicated that serovars Autumnalis and
Australis among rat isolates were not strains Akiyami A and Ballico, respectively.
Moreover, the findings revealed that rat isolates of serovars Autumnalis, Bataviae and
Pyrogenes each have their own clone circulating among field rats, excluding serovar
Australis which was found to have 2 distinct clones.
The results of serovar characterization among 40 rat isolates by PFGE and
ribotyping showed 100% concordance. In addition, the same banding patterns of serovars
Pyrogenes and Autumnalis of leptospires isolated from field rats and from human
leptospirosis cases were observed. This suggested that there was a clonal spread of
pathogenic leptospires among field rats, and field rats may have served as reservoirs for
transmission of leptospires to humans during the outbreak.
In conclusion, PFGE is a powerful tool for differentiating clonal difference
between Leptospira serovars. Moreover, this technique can be used in epidemiological
studies as well.