Neglected leptospirosis in raccoons (Procyon lotor) in Indiana, USA

Abstract

Background: Leptospirosis is a globally important zoonotic disease occurring clinically and subclinically in humans and animals. Objectives: To determine whether raccoons in Indiana carried leptospires in their kidneys. Animals and methods: Thirty-four raccoons were live-trapped from two forest patches in central Indiana. Following euthanasia, a portion of kidney (2 cm 2 ) from each raccoon was homogenized and used for leptospiral culture. Leptospiral cultures were subjected to DNA extraction and various polymerase chain reaction (PCR) procedures reported previously. Serum sample from each raccoon was collected and antibody titers to leptospiral serovars were determined by microscopic agglutination test (MAT). Results: All leptospiral cultures were positive for Leptospira by various PCR procedures. The PCR with the primers targeting the conservative region of LipL32 gene was the most sensitive PCR in the detection of pathogenic leptospires. The variable LipL32 PCR amplicons were sequenced and compared to the reference strains available in GenBank. Twelve kidney cultures had Leptospira interrogans, eight had Leptospira kirschneri and two had Leptospira borgpetersenii. They were predominantly Grippotyphosa serogroup. Antileptospire antibodies were detected in 16 out of 34 raccoons (47.1%) by MAT. There were titers ! 1:80 in 16 raccoons (47.1%) and titers ! 1:400 in 3 raccoons (8.8%). The highest leptospiral serovar-specific seroreactivity among 34 raccoons was L. interrogans Bratislava (38.2%) and L. interrogans Grippotyphosa (32.4%). Conclusions: Raccoons in Indiana carry leptospiral organisms in kidneys and the leptospires are predominantly L. interrogans species and of the Grippotyphosa serogroup. Clinical importance: The raccoons serve as reservoir hosts that exposure sources to wildlife, livestock, pets and humans.

LeptospiraSeroprevalence Detection and Rabies Virus Absence in an Urban Raccoon (Procyon lotor) Population in a Highly Populated Area, Costa Rica

“…Our results show that raccoons are competent, peridomestic wildlife hosts for Leptospira in urban areas of Costa Rica. The identified Leptospira prevalence (32.6%) in Costa Rica is consistent with studies in temperate zones performed by Jardine et al (2011a) and Duncan et al (2012), who reported similar findings (30%), and is consistent with other studies, where prevalence ranged from 10% to 70% (Mitchell et al, 1999, Hamir et al, 2001, Richardson and Gauthier, 2003, Bischof and Rogers, 2005, Junge et al, 2007, Koizumi et al, 2009, Raizman et al, 2009, Jardine et al, 2011b, Tan et al, 2014. However, to date, no data were available for the prevalence of Leptospira in raccoons in a Mesoamerican country.…”

Raccoons (Procyon lotor) and Striped Skunks (Mephitis mephitis) as Potential Reservoirs of Leptospira spp. in California

“…Shearer et al (2014) detected leptospires by IHC in renal tissue from 42% of 33 skunks and 33% of 245 raccoons in Ontario, Canada and Duncan et al (2012) found 30% of 65 raccoons in Colorado to be positive for renal leptospires by IHC. We found a higher renal PCR-prevalence in California skunks than the 18% (n = 49) that was detected recently in British Columbia, Canada (Britton et al 2017) but a substantially lower rate of infection than was found in raccoons in Indiana where 100% of 34 raccoons from two sites were culture positive for renal leptospires (Tan et al 2014).…”

“…infects over 160 domestic and wild animal species worldwide (Babudieri 1958, Matthias et al 2008, Ko et al 2009. Clinical leptospirosis in humans and dogs ranges and Rogers 2005, Raizman et al 2009, Allen et al 2014, and active infection was reported in these regions as well (Roth et al 1963, Shearer et al 2014, Tan et al 2014). However, their roles in leptospirosis in western North America were poorly documented (Duncan et al 2012, Britton et al 2017.…”

Evidence of Leptospira Serovars in Wildlife and Leptospiral Dna in Water Sources in a Natural Area in East-Central Illinois, Usa

“…Because wildlife in a natural setting are not vaccinated, we used a cutoff titer 1:25 for detection of exposure to Leptospira. A study using a cutoff of 1:40 reported 46.1% seroprevalence in raccoons at titers 1:80 (Tan et al 2014). Our seroprevalence in raccoons was 54.8%, comparable to 47% in Indiana (Raizman et al 2009), 48% in Illinois (Mitchell et al 1999), and 36% in Connecticut (Richardson and Gauthier 2003); but higher than 11% in Nebraska (Bischof and Rogers 2005).…”