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ARS Home » Midwest Area » Ames, Iowa » National Animal Disease Center » Infectious Bacterial Diseases Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #80575
Title: A NEW LEPTOSPIRAL SEROVAR NGAVI IN THE TARASSOVI SEROGROUP ISOLATED FROM ZIMBABWE OXEN.

Author
item FERESU, SARA - UNIVERSITY OF ZIMBABWE
item Bolin, Carole
item KORVER, HANS - ROYAL TROP INST AMSTERDAM

Submitted to: International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 2/17/1997
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary: Leptospirosis is an important cause of abortion, stillbirths, and neonatal death in cattle throughout the world. The specific serotypes of Leptospira which cause disease vary in different parts of the world. It is important to determine the local serotypes in order to produce effective vaccines for use in that area. In this study, a new serotype of Leptospira was isolated dfrom cattle in Zimbabwe. This new serotype shows some similarity to previously isolated leptospires but is sufficiently different to be designated as a new serotype--serovar ngavi. This information will be useful to international taxonomists, and regulatory officials and vaccine manufacturers in Zimbabwe.

Technical Abstract: Two strains of the genus Leptospira, belonging to serogroup Tarassovi, were isolated from kidneys of apparently healthy oxen slaughtered at an abattoir in Zimbabwe. Both strains belonged to the same serovar but could not be assigned to previously known serovars using the cross-agglutinin absorption test. The name ngavi is proposed for the new serovar containing these two strains; with strain SBF 16 as the reference strain. The Zimbabwe isolate showed some antigenic similarity to serovar gatuni when analyses were carried out using eight monoclonal antibodies; and had restriction patterns similar to those of serovars tarassovi, tunis, moldaviae, and guidae when their chromosomal DNAs were analyzed using restriction fragment length polymorphism analyses. The restriction patterns of the two strains could be distinguished from each other and from those of the four serovars when their Southern blots were hybridized with a probe synthesized from a repetitive sequence element cloned from serovar hardjo strain hardjo-bovis