BACKGROUND Brucellosis is a widespread zoonotic disease caused by Gram-negative Brucella bacteria. Immunisation with attenuated vaccine is an effective method of prevention, but it can interfere with diagnosis. Live, attenuated Brucella abortus strain 104M has been used for the prevention of human brucellosis in China since 1965. However, at present, no fast and reliable method exists that can ...

INTRODUCTION Brucella spp. are gram-negative, facultative intracellular bacteria pathogens responsible for brucellosis, a zoonotic disease that can cause abortion, fetal death, and genital infections in animals and undulant fever in humans. Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) is known as a major virulence factor of Brucella spp. The wboA gene is capable of encoding a glycosyltransferase that appears to pl...

A Brucella melitensis 16M DNA fragment of 17,119 bp, which contains a large region deleted in B. abortus strains and DNA flanking one side of the deletion, has been characterized. In addition to the previously identified omp31 gene, 14 hypothetical genes have been identified in the B. melitensis fragment, most of them showing homology to genes involved in the synthesis of a polysaccharide. Cons...

The relationship between formation of exogenous alanine and the establishment of nonsmooth variants in originally smooth cultures of Brucella abortus strains has been clearly demonstrated (Goodlow et al., 1950). Furthermore, the addition of D-alanine to smooth cultures in synthetic medium (Gerhardt and Wilson, 1948) results in earlier establishment of nonsmooth cells (Goodlow et al., 1951). Sub...

A simple, rapid, inexpensive fluorescence polarization assay for the detection of antibodies to Brucella abortus in bulk tank milk samples at the farm level or at dairies with a sensitivity and specificity of 100 and 95.9%, respectively, is described. The assay detects antibodies to B. abortus in 15 min by testing undiluted whey produced by chemical and physical manipulation of milk from bulk t...

INTRODUCTION Brucellosis is one of the most important zoonotic diseases that affects multiple livestock species and causes great economic losses. The highly conserved genomes of Brucella, with > 90% homology among species, makes it important to study the genetic diversity circulating in the country. METHODOLOGY A total of 26 Brucella spp. (4 reference strains and 22 field isolates) and 1 B. m...

Increased resistance to infection with Brucella abortus 2308 resulted when recombinant murine gamma interferon (rMuIFN-gamma) was given to mice both before and during infection but not when given only before infection. Mice given rMuIFN-gamma had enhanced peritoneal and splenic macrophage bactericidal activity against B. abortus. Treatment of mice with rMuIFN-gamma plus indomethacin did not fur...

Background: Virulence of pathogenic bacteria is often determined by their ability to adapt to stress. Result: The Brucella abortus general stress response (GSR) system is required for chronic mammalian infection, and is regulated by phosphorylation and proteolysis. Conclusion: The B. abortus GSR signaling pathway has multiple layers of post-translational control, and is a determinant of chronic...

Brucella canis is considered a rare cause of human brucellosis. The clinical importance of this infection may have been underestimated so far because of difficulties with presumptive diagnosis. The case described here presented symptoms compatible with brucellosis but the routine tests using Brucella abortus antigen were negative. The infection would have remained undiagnosed if culture had not...