Bartonella henselae is a recently recognized pathogenic bacterium associated with cat scratch disease, bacillary angiomatosis, and bacillary peliosis. This study describes the cloning, sequencing, and characterization of an antigenic autotransporter gene from B. henselae. A cloned 6.0-kb BclI-EcoRI DNA fragment expresses a 120-kDa B. henselae protein immunoreactive with 21.2% of sera from patie...

Cats are the natural host for Bartonella henselae, an opportunistic human pathogen and the agent of cat scratch disease. Here, we have analyzed the natural variation in gene content and genome structure of 38 Bartonella henselae strains isolated from cats and humans by comparative genome hybridizations to microarrays and probe hybridizations to pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) blots. The...

Bartonella quintana and Bartonella henselae are fastidious gram-negative bacteria responsible for bacillary angiomatosis, trench fever, cat scratch disease, and endocarditis. During a 5-year period, we received 2,043 samples for culture of Bartonella sp. We found Bartonella sp. to be the etiologic agent in 38 cases of endocarditis, 78 cases of cat scratch disease, 16 cases of bacteremia in home...

BACKGROUND Bartonella cat scratch disease is classically a febrile illness, in conjunction with lymphadenopathy and cat exposure. OBJECTIVE To report 2 atypical cases of cat scratch disease with only blurred vision and headache. DESIGN Case reports. SETTING University hospital. PATIENTS Two young adults with unilateral blurred vision, retro-orbital headache, and a positive Bartonella he...

We report a case of cat scratch disease in an 8-yr-old girl who presented with fever and enlargement of both axillary lymph nodes. Both aerobic and anaerobic cultures of the lymph node aspirate were negative for microbial growth. Gram staining and Warthin-Starry silver staining did not reveal any organism. Purified DNA from the PCR-amplicon of the 16S-23S rRNA intergenic region was sequenced an...

Cat scratch disease has been reported very rarely in cardiac transplant recipients. In a review of 1073 episodes of infection in 620 heart transplant patients over a 16 year period, only one case of infection secondary to Bartonella henselae was documented. Another case of hepatosplenic bacillary angiomatosis from B. henselae was reported 2 decades ago in a heart transplant recipient who had pr...

The type IV secretion system (T4SS) VirB/D4 of the facultative intracellular pathogen Bartonella henselae is known to translocate bacterial effector proteins into human cells. Two recent reports on DNA transfer into human cells have demonstrated the versatility of this bacterial secretion system for macromolecular substrate transfer. Moreover, these findings have opened the possibility for deve...

Multiple locus variable number tandem repeat analysis was performed on 178 Bartonella henselae isolates from 9 countries; 99 profiles were distributed into 2 groups. Human isolates/strains were placed into the second group. Genotype I and II isolates shared no common profile. All genotype I isolates clustered within group B. The evolutive implications are discussed.