Bordetella holmesii, an emerging pathogen, can be misidentified as Bordetella pertussis by routine polymerase chain reaction (PCR). In some reports, up to 29% of the patients diagnosed with pertussis have in fact B. holmesii infection and invasive, non-respiratory B. holmesii infections have been reported worldwide. This misdiagnosis undermines the knowledge of pertussis' epidemiology, and may ...

Pertussis is a vaccine-preventable disease that affects people of all ages. Young adults who have lost their immunity to pertussis are the major source of infection in infants. Given the steady increase of pertussis cases, new prevention strategies are required. Objective. To assess pertussis seroprevalence in adult blood donors, post-partum women, and umbilical cords. Metod. Measurement of tot...

We have characterized a new virulence factor in Bordetella pertussis: serum resistance. Compared with Escherichia coli HB101, wild-type B. pertussis was relatively resistant to classical-pathway, complement-dependent killing by normal human serum. However, a mutant of B. pertussis (BPM2041) which is less virulent in mice and which has Tn5 lac inserted in a previously uncharacterized bvg-regulat...

The bfeA (Bordetella ferric enterobactin) receptor gene was cloned from a Bordetella pertussis chromosomal library by using a screen in Escherichia coli to detect iron-repressed genes encoding exported proteins translationally fused to the E. coli phoA gene. The bfeA gene encoded a protein with a molecular mass of approximately 80 kDa and about 50% amino acid sequence identity to both the fepA-...

Bordetella hinzii colonizes the respiratory tracts of poultry but can also infect immunocompromised humans. Bordetella trematum, however, only infects humans, causing ear and wound infections. Here, we present the first draft genome sequences of strains B. hinzii ATCC 51730 and B. trematum CCUG 13902.

Monoclonal antibodies that specifically agglutinate strains of Bordetella pertussis having serotype 1 agglutinogen were uniquely reactive with the electrophoretically slow-migrating A form of lipooligosaccharide. These monoclonal antibodies should be useful for the structural analysis of B. pertussis lipooligosaccharide and for the establishment of a better-defined serogroup for Bordetella spec...

Bordetella pertussis was diagnosed in a human immunodeficiency virus-infected patient by a newly developed method in which bacterial DNA is amplified directly from sputum Gram-stained slides. The validation of the method is described along with an additional new PCR-based assay that can distinguish between B. pertussis and Bordetella holmesii.

Bordetella bronchiseptica is closely related with B. pertussis and B. parapertussis, the causative agents of whooping cough. These pathogenic species share a number of virulence genes, including the gene locus for the type III secretion system (T3SS) that delivers effector proteins. To identify unknown type III effectors in Bordetella, secreted proteins in the bacterial culture supernatants of ...

The ptl locus of Bordetella pertussis contains eight open reading frames which are predicted to encode proteins (PtlA to PtlH) that are essential for secretion of pertussis toxin from the bacterium and which are members of a family of transport proteins found in other types of bacteria. We have detected PtlE, PtlF, and PtlG in immunoblots of extracts of B. pertussis by using antibodies raised t...