Fig 2. Phylogenetic analysis of leptospiral lfb-1 gene sequences.

Sequences from the 4 patients are shown in red while clones from environmental soils samples obtained during the retrospective study are shown in blue (first environmental sampling) or green (late environmental sampling). Note the presence of the L. interrogans Pyrogenes NC lfb-1 sequence from the patient in all the corresponding investigated soils. lfb-1 sequence from Site 2 soil 2 was identify as L. interrogans Australis and indeed cluster with L. interrogans Australis NC. Several sequences for Site 4 either cluster with L. kmetyi (Soil1) or form a new branch within pathogenic Leptospira species (Soil 4 sequence 1, 2 and 3). Phylogenetic tree was built using Phylo-win program with 500 bootstrap replicates applying Neighbour Joining method and Kimura’s 2-parameter distances.