Pathogenic Leptospira Species in Insectivorous Bats, China, 2015

Abstract

PCR amplification of the rrs2 gene indicated that 50% (62/124) of insectivorous bats from eastern China were infected with Leptospira borgpetersenii, L. kirschneri, and several potentially new Leptospira species. Multilocus sequence typing defined 3 novel sequence types in L. kirschneri, suggesting that bats are major carriers of Leptospira.

Keywords

• Leptospira
• bat
• Eptesicus serotinus
• Myotis fimbriatus
• Myotis ricketti
• Myotis pequinius