Seeking the environmental source of Leptospirosis reveals durable bacterial viability in river soils.
BACKGROUND:Leptospirosis is an important re-emerging infectious disease that affects humans worldwide. Infection occurs from indirect environment-mediated exposure to pathogenic leptospires through contaminated watered environments. The ability of pathogenic leptospires to persist in the aqueous env...
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ftdoajarticles:oai:doaj.org/article:acbf9a41b9e84a4cae640836a1a85203 2023-05-15T15:09:23+02:00 Seeking the environmental source of Leptospirosis reveals durable bacterial viability in river soils. Roman Thibeaux Sophie Geroult Claire Benezech Stéphane Chabaud Marie-Estelle Soupé-Gilbert Dominique Girault Emilie Bierque Cyrille Goarant 2017-02-01T00:00:00Z https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0005414 https://doaj.org/article/acbf9a41b9e84a4cae640836a1a85203 EN eng Public Library of Science (PLoS) http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC5344526?pdf=render https://doaj.org/toc/1935-2727 https://doaj.org/toc/1935-2735 1935-2727 1935-2735 doi:10.1371/journal.pntd.0005414 https://doaj.org/article/acbf9a41b9e84a4cae640836a1a85203 PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases, Vol 11, Iss 2, p e0005414 (2017) Arctic medicine. Tropical medicine RC955-962 Public aspects of medicine RA1-1270 article 2017 ftdoajarticles https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0005414 2022-12-31T11:55:29Z BACKGROUND:Leptospirosis is an important re-emerging infectious disease that affects humans worldwide. Infection occurs from indirect environment-mediated exposure to pathogenic leptospires through contaminated watered environments. The ability of pathogenic leptospires to persist in the aqueous environment is a key factor in transmission to new hosts. Hence, an effort was made to detect pathogenic leptospires in complex environmental samples, to genotype positive samples and to assess leptospiral viability over time. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS:We focused our study on human leptospirosis cases infected with the New Caledonian Leptospira interrogans serovar Pyrogenes. Epidemiologically related to freshwater contaminations, this strain is responsible for ca. 25% of human cases in New Caledonia. We screened soil and water samples retrieved from suspected environmental infection sites for the pathogen-specific leptospiral gene lipL-32. Soil samples from all suspected infection sites tested showed detectable levels of pathogenic leptospiral DNA. More importantly, we demonstrated by viability qPCR that those pathogenic leptospires were viable and persisted in infection sites for several weeks after the index contamination event. Further, molecular phylogenetic analyses of the leptospiral lfb-1 gene successfully linked the identity of environmental Leptospira to the corresponding human-infecting strain. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE:Altogether, this study illustrates the potential of quantitative viability-PCR assay for the rapid detection of viable leptospires in environmental samples, which might open avenues to strategies aimed at assessing environmental risk. Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles Arctic PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases 11 2 e0005414 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles |
op_collection_id |
ftdoajarticles |
language |
English |
topic |
Arctic medicine. Tropical medicine RC955-962 Public aspects of medicine RA1-1270 |
spellingShingle |
Arctic medicine. Tropical medicine RC955-962 Public aspects of medicine RA1-1270 Roman Thibeaux Sophie Geroult Claire Benezech Stéphane Chabaud Marie-Estelle Soupé-Gilbert Dominique Girault Emilie Bierque Cyrille Goarant Seeking the environmental source of Leptospirosis reveals durable bacterial viability in river soils. |
topic_facet |
Arctic medicine. Tropical medicine RC955-962 Public aspects of medicine RA1-1270 |
description |
BACKGROUND:Leptospirosis is an important re-emerging infectious disease that affects humans worldwide. Infection occurs from indirect environment-mediated exposure to pathogenic leptospires through contaminated watered environments. The ability of pathogenic leptospires to persist in the aqueous environment is a key factor in transmission to new hosts. Hence, an effort was made to detect pathogenic leptospires in complex environmental samples, to genotype positive samples and to assess leptospiral viability over time. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS:We focused our study on human leptospirosis cases infected with the New Caledonian Leptospira interrogans serovar Pyrogenes. Epidemiologically related to freshwater contaminations, this strain is responsible for ca. 25% of human cases in New Caledonia. We screened soil and water samples retrieved from suspected environmental infection sites for the pathogen-specific leptospiral gene lipL-32. Soil samples from all suspected infection sites tested showed detectable levels of pathogenic leptospiral DNA. More importantly, we demonstrated by viability qPCR that those pathogenic leptospires were viable and persisted in infection sites for several weeks after the index contamination event. Further, molecular phylogenetic analyses of the leptospiral lfb-1 gene successfully linked the identity of environmental Leptospira to the corresponding human-infecting strain. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE:Altogether, this study illustrates the potential of quantitative viability-PCR assay for the rapid detection of viable leptospires in environmental samples, which might open avenues to strategies aimed at assessing environmental risk. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Roman Thibeaux Sophie Geroult Claire Benezech Stéphane Chabaud Marie-Estelle Soupé-Gilbert Dominique Girault Emilie Bierque Cyrille Goarant |
author_facet |
Roman Thibeaux Sophie Geroult Claire Benezech Stéphane Chabaud Marie-Estelle Soupé-Gilbert Dominique Girault Emilie Bierque Cyrille Goarant |
author_sort |
Roman Thibeaux |
title |
Seeking the environmental source of Leptospirosis reveals durable bacterial viability in river soils. |
title_short |
Seeking the environmental source of Leptospirosis reveals durable bacterial viability in river soils. |
title_full |
Seeking the environmental source of Leptospirosis reveals durable bacterial viability in river soils. |
title_fullStr |
Seeking the environmental source of Leptospirosis reveals durable bacterial viability in river soils. |
title_full_unstemmed |
Seeking the environmental source of Leptospirosis reveals durable bacterial viability in river soils. |
title_sort |
seeking the environmental source of leptospirosis reveals durable bacterial viability in river soils. |
publisher |
Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
publishDate |
2017 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0005414 https://doaj.org/article/acbf9a41b9e84a4cae640836a1a85203 |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
Arctic |
genre_facet |
Arctic |
op_source |
PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases, Vol 11, Iss 2, p e0005414 (2017) |
op_relation |
http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC5344526?pdf=render https://doaj.org/toc/1935-2727 https://doaj.org/toc/1935-2735 1935-2727 1935-2735 doi:10.1371/journal.pntd.0005414 https://doaj.org/article/acbf9a41b9e84a4cae640836a1a85203 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0005414 |
container_title |
PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases |
container_volume |
11 |
container_issue |
2 |
container_start_page |
e0005414 |
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1766340589304938496 |