Skip to content
EntityQ133841· pop 30· linked from 125 articles

Leptospira

Sign in to save

Leptospira () is a genus of spirochaete bacteria, including a small number of pathogenic and saprophytic species. Leptospira was first observed in 1907 in kidney tissue slices of a leptospirosis victim who was described as having died of "yellow fever". In 1917, Hideyo Noguchi named the genus Leptospira after witnessing it in the kidneys of American rats seemingly producing the same disease in Guinea pigs as in European rats.

Species

Genus

  1. PhylumProteobacteria
  2. ClassGammaproteobacteria
  3. OrderLegionellales
  4. FamilyLegionellaceae
Observations1

via

Museum specimens

Specimen records
11
Family
Leptospiraceae
Collections
CMN, NHMUK
Recorded in
Canada

~11 min read

Encyclopedic overview

11 sections
Contents
  • Taxonomy
  • Phylogeny
  • Morphology
  • Cellular structure
  • Habitat
  • Nutrition
  • Genome
  • Genotyping
  • See also
  • References
  • External links

Leptospira () is a genus of spirochaete bacteria, including a small number of pathogenic and saprophytic species. Leptospira was first observed in 1907 in kidney tissue slices of a leptospirosis victim who was described as having died of "yellow fever". In 1917, Hideyo Noguchi named the genus Leptospira after witnessing it in the kidneys of American rats seemingly producing the same disease in Guinea pigs as in European rats.

==Taxonomy== Leptospira, together with the genera Leptonema and Turneria, is a member of the family Leptospiraceae. The genus Leptospira is divided into 20 species based on DNA hybridization studies.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Leptospira” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.