Project

Leptospirosis is a re-emerging zoonosis that affects more than one million people and causes nearly 60,000 deaths per year worldwide. This disease transmitted to humans via an environment contaminated by bacteria of the genus Leptospira has a record incidence in Oceania. Pathogenic leptospires are able to survive for several weeks in the environment. The production of a biofilm allows them to efficiently resist to hostile conditions and would explain their persistence in the environment. Our recent work has shown that the regulation of biofilm formation is under the control of cyclic di-GMP, an intracellular second messenger recognized as a signaling molecule coordinating the transition between motile (planktonic) and sessile (biofilm) life styles. This project aims to determine the role of cyclic di-GMP in the regulation of pathogenesis and biofilm formation in Leptospira interrogans in order to better understand the environmental survival of this pathogenic bacterium.