Leptospirosis Vaccine

Leptospirosis Problem

Leptospirosis is a worldwide zoonotic disease caused by pathogenic Leptospira, which are classified into more than 250 serovars. Leptospirosis is most frequently recognized in dogs, swine, horses and rodents. However, the major carriers of the disease are rodents. Infections in humans often result from direct contact with the urine of infected animals or indirect contact with a urine-contaminated environment. The clinical manifestations may range from a mild flu-like illness to a severe and fatal disease.

Leptospirosis Vaccine

Using leptospiral outer membrane proteins OmpL1 and LipL41 as antigens, it was shown that two antigens exhibited synergistic immunoprotection. This study prompted us to investigate the immunogenicity induced by a single DNA vaccine encoding lipL32 and loa22 and formulated with chitosan. We evaluated whether the combination of LipL32 and Loa22 generates more robust humoral and cellular immune responses compared with the use of each antigen alone.

J. Microbiol. Biotechnol. (2015), 25(4), 526–536

Cellular immune response in an in vitro restimulation assay

Currently, we are focusing on vaccine that contain 4 recombinant proteins and investigate the immunogenicity response by single antigen and all 4 antigens in hamster model.