[Construction of gene bank of L. interrogans serovar lai and cloning of homological sequences of virulent leptospirosis].

A gene bank of the main pathogen of pulmonary diffuse haemorrhage type leptospirosis (PDH), L. interrogans serovar lai strain 017, was first constructed with plasmid vector pUC9, which contained 610 recombinant clones and laid the foundation for further investigation of molecular characteristics of leptospires with strong virulence. Recombinant plasmids which have homological sequences of pathogenic leptospires were screened from the gene bank. A recombinant plasmid, designated pCX7, could detect 1.7 kb fragment of strain 017, 9.0 kb of strain 601 and 30.0 kb of strain 610 respectively without cross hybridization with nonvirulent leptospires such as L. biflexa strain Patoc I and Leptonema illini. pCX9, another recombinant plasmid, could detect 1.9 kb fragment of strain 017 and had no hybridization with other pathogenic or nonpathogenic leptospires. The results showed that the degree of homology between pathogenic and non-pathogenic leptospires was very low and the degree of homology was very high among the pathogenic leptospires.