Resumen

Leptospirosis is a disease caused by the bacteria of the Leptospira genus, which can be usually acquired by humans through contact with urine from infected animals, which can also contaminate soils and bodies of water. The disease can have deadly consequences in some extreme cases. Fortunately, until now, this disease is easily treated with doxycycline and azithromycin. Currently, with the extensive use of such medications, more bacteria such as Staphylococci and Enterococci are becoming resistant. The purpose of this study is to determine the presence of genes related to antibiotic resistance in Leptospira genus using bioinformatic tools, which has not been undertaken in the past. Whole genomes from the 69 described Leptospira species were downloaded from NCBI’s GeneBank and analyzed using CARD (The Comprehensive Antibiotic Resistant Database) and RAST (Rapid Annotations using Subsystem Technology). After a detailed search, 12 genes associated with four mechanisms were found: resistance to beta lactamases, vancomycin, and aminoglycoside adenylyltransferases, as well as multiple drug efflux pumps. Some of these genes are highly polymorphic among different species and some of them are present in multiple copies in the same species. In conclusion, this study could potentially be the starting point for new in vitro studies to increase the overall understanding of resistance in the Leptospira genus.