Undiagnosed leptospirosis cases in naïve and vaccinated dogs: properties of a serological test based on a synthetic peptide derived from Hap1/LipL32 (residues 154-178).

Leptospirosis is a common disease in dogs, despite having current vaccinations. However, leptospirosis diagnosis based on the routine Microscopic Agglutination Test (MAT) leads to confusing conclusions, especially for infected vaccinated dogs. Indeed, both bacterin and natural infection stimulate the production of agglutinating antibodies. In experimentally infected dogs, antibodies against the peptide PP derived from Hap1/Lipl32 were raised earlier than agglutinating antibodies. The background level of these antibodies was determined in a group of 109 healthy dogs, either vaccinated or not against leptospirosis, with a specificity for IgM of 96.4% and for IgG of 95.5%. PP ELISA was subsequently performed with 118 sera from dogs with suspected leptospirosis that was not confirmed by MAT. New leptospirosis cases based on the PP ELISA results were suspected in 14 out of 102 vaccinated dogs and in two out of 16 non-vaccinated dogs. These results highlight the importance of serological diagnosis corresponding to an interesting window when it is too late for PCR detection and too early to be confirmed by MAT.