Diagnosis of leptospirosis using microscopic agglutination test and slot blot hybridization

摘要

Early diagnosis of leptospirosis is important for clinical management of the disease as treatment can be effective if initiated early. Microscopic agglutination test is a standard test for its diagnosis but results from it are positive only after 2-3weeks of infection. Early diagnosis of leptospirosis is possible by detecting the specific sequences ef leptospiral DNA in clinical samples such as blood, urine, CSF and milk etc. The present study was conducted on bovine and human samples referred by theclinicians and suspected for leptospirosis. Total 263 serum samples from cattle and 55 human'serum samples were used in the present study. Fifty five referred urine samples from same human patients were centrifuged at 15000 rpm for 20 min and resultingpellet was mixed with 50 mu l of sterile PBS and kept at 4°C before being blotted on to nylon membrane for slot blot hybridization.