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ARS Home » Midwest Area » Ames, Iowa » National Animal Disease Center » Infectious Bacterial Diseases Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #151287
Title: EXPRESSION OF LEPTOSPIRAL IMMUNOGLOBULIN-LIKE PROTEIN FROM LEPTOSPIRA INTERROGANS AND EVALUATION OF ITS DIAGNOSTIC POTENTIAL IN A KINETIC ELISA

Author
item PALANAIPPAN, R - CORNELL UNIV
item CHANG, Y - CORNELL UNIV
item HASSAN, F - CORNELL UNIV
item MCDONOUGH, S - CORNELL UNIV
item POUGH, M - CORNELL UNIV
item BARR, S - CORNELL UNIV
item SIMPSON, K - CORNELL UNIV
item MOHAMMAD, H - CORNELL UNIV
item HAAKE, D - UCLA, VA
item Zuerner, Richard

Submitted to: Journal of Medical Microbiology
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 5/20/2004
Publication Date: 10/1/2004
Citation: Palanaippan, R., Chang, Y., Hassan, F., Mcdonough, S., Pough, M., Barr, S., Simpson, K., Mohammad, H., Haake, D., Zuerner, R.L. 2004. Expression of leptospiral immunoglobulin-like protein from leptospira interrogans and evaluation of its diagnostic potential in kinetic ELISA. Journal of Medical Microbiology. 53(10):975-984.

Interpretive Summary: Leptospirosis is one of the most common zoonotic diseases in the world. There is a lack of sensitive diagnostic assays for pathogenic strains of Leptospira. This study describes cloning a gene that is well conserved among pathogenic leptospires, but which does not appear to be expressed outside of animals. This protein is closely related to another similar protein previously characterized from Leptospira, suggesting they form a family of related proteins, possibly with common function. Portions of these two proteins were used to develop a serologically based assay for detection of infections in dogs.

Technical Abstract: The ligB gene was obtained by screening a genomic library of L. interrogans with convalescent sera. ligB gene contains an open reading frame of 5,667 bases that encodes for 1,889 amino acids. LigB has complete homology with LigA at the amino terminal region but is variable in the carboxyl terminal. LigB contains twelve, 90 amino acid sequence repeats of immunoglobulin like fold and agglutinin-like domain (lectin type). Both LigA and LigB appear to be surface proteins that are expressed during infection, but not translated at detectable during growth in vitro. LigA and ligB are present in most of the pathogenic serovars of Leptospira but not in the non-pathogenic L. biflexa. The conserved region and variable regions of LigA and LigB (Con, VarA and VarB) were cloned and expressed as GST fusion proteins. Kinetics-ELISA (KELA) was performed with GST fusion proteins of Con, VarA and VarB. Analysis of canine sera suggests these proteins will be suitable for the serological diagnosis of leptospirosis.