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Leptospira kmetyi sp. nov., isolated from an environmental source in Malaysia

¹ WHO/FAO/OIE Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Leptospirosis, Western Pacific Region, Communicable Diseases, Queensland Health Forensic and Scientific Services, Brisbane, Australia
² Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia
³ Bacterial Zoonoses Branch, Coordinating Center for Infectious Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA, USA
⁴ Virology Department, Communicable Diseases, Queensland Health Forensic and Scientific Services, Brisbane, Australia

Correspondence
Lee D. Smythe
Lee_smythe{at}health.qld.gov.au

A single Leptospira strain (designated Bejo-Iso9^T) was isolated from a soil sample taken in Johor, Malaysia. The isolate showed motility and morphology typical of the genus Leptospira under dark-field microscopy. Cells were found to be 10–13 µm in length and 0.2 µm in diameter, with a wavelength of 0.5 µm and an amplitude of approximately 0.2 µm. Phenotypically, strain Bejo-Iso9^T grew in Ellinghausen–McCullough–Johnson–Harris medium at 13, 30 and 37 °C, and also in the presence of 8-azaguanine. Serologically, strain Bejo-Iso9^T produced titres towards several members of the Tarassovi serogroup, but was found to be serologically unique by cross-agglutinin absorption test and thus represented a novel serovar. The proposed name for this serovar is Malaysia. Phylogenetic analysis of 16S rRNA gene sequences placed this novel strain within the radiation of the genus Leptospira, with sequence similarities within the range 90.4–99.5% with respect to recognized Leptospira species. DNA–DNA hybridization against the three most closely related Leptospira species was used to confirm the results of the 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis. The G+C content of the genome of strain Bejo-Iso9^T was 36.2 mol%. On the basis of phenotypic, serological and phylogenetic data, strain Bejo-Iso9^T represents a novel species of the genus Leptospira, for which the name Leptospira kmetyi sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is Bejo-Iso9^T (=WHO LT1101^T=KIT Bejo-Iso9^T).

The GenBank/EMBL/DDBJ accession numbers for the 16S rRNA, DNA gyrase subunit B and RNA polymerase subunit B gene sequences of Leptospira kmetyi serovar Malaysia strain Bejo-Iso9^T are AB279549, AB279550 and AB291211, respectively.

Supplementary tables are available with the online version of this paper.

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