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. 2026 Mar 13;16:13419. doi: 10.1038/s41598-026-43869-y

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© This is a U.S. Government work and not under copyright protection in the US; foreign copyright protection may apply 2026

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Fig. 6 — Control and LIC12143 mutant bacterins confer homologous but not heterologous protection. (A–D) Hamsters (n = 5) were vaccinated with two doses of either wild-type or LIC12143 mutant bacterin, or received medium only (negative control), and subsequently challenged intraperitoneally with 10⁶ cells of wild-type L. interrogans serovar Canicola strain LAD-1 (homologous challenge). Animals were monitored daily for clinical signs of acute leptospirosis and euthanized upon reaching humane endpoint criteria. Bacterial burden was assessed by qPCR in blood on day 3 (B), and in liver (C) and kidney (D) at endpoint or at the conclusion of the experiment. (E–H) A parallel cohort (n = 5) was challenged with L. interrogans serovar Copenhageni strain R47 (heterologous challenge) following the same vaccination protocol. Bacterial burden was similarly evaluated in blood on day 3 (F), and in liver (G) and kidney (H) at endpoint or experiment completion. Endpoints of animals were compared using the Log-rank (Mantel–Cox) test. For bacterial burden analysis, comparisons between control and mutant-infected groups were performed using non-parametric Mann-Whitney test (*P ≤ 0.05).