Pathogenic Leptospira species are important human and animal pathogen that causes leptospirosis, with more than half a million cases reported annually but little is known regarding the true incidence of leptospirosis due to the limitations in diagnosis. Proteins embedded in the outer membrane are found to be prime drug targets due to its key role as receptors for cellular communication and gatekeepers for iron and substrate transport across cell membranes. The major key issues to be addressed to overcome the disease burden of leptospirosis are: need to identify the genes that turn on in vivo; development of rapid diagnostic methods to facilitate the early diagnosis and to develop a universal vaccine. Recent whole genome sequencing of Leptospira species and development of in silico analysis tools have led to the identification of a large number of leptospiral virulence genes, metabolic pathways and surface protein secretion systems that represent potential new targets for the development of anti-leptospiral drug, vaccine and diagnostic strategies. This review surveys the different types of outer membrane proteins (OMPs) of Leptospira and combines all the novel features of OMPs reported till date and put forth some views for future research.
Keywords: Diagnosis; outer membrane proteins; pathogenesis; recombinant vaccine; surface OMPs; virulent proteins.