Viability of Bordetella pertussis was preserved when glycerol broth suspensions were quick frozen and stored at -70 C for as long as 45 months.

Pertussis toxin accumulates in the periplasm of Bordetella pertussis prior to secretion, and we examined its fate following treatment with antimicrobial agents. Both antibiotics that inhibit protein synthesis (erythromycin and chloramphenicol), transcription (rifampin), or cell wall biosynthesis (cefoperazone and piperacillin) and magnesium sulfate (which inhibits transcription of pertussis tox...

To the Editor: Pertussis, or whooping cough, is a highly contagious respiratory disease in humans caused by Bordetella pertussis. Reemergence of pertussis has been observed in many countries with high vaccination coverage. In the United States, reported cases of pertussis in adolescents and adults have increased since the 1980s, despite increasingly high rates of vaccination in infants and chil...

Exponential cultures of Bordetella pertussis strain 18334 were treated with the membrane-perturbing agent phenethyl alcohol which, at a concentration of 0.075% v/v, blocked the synthesis of mature subunit S1 of pertussis toxin as revealed by Western blotting. It also caused the accumulation of a precursor, pS1, with an estimated mol. wt of 32 X 10(3), that was located in the cytoplasmic membran...

BACKGROUND The clinical diagnosis of pertussis is not easy in early infancy since clinical manifestations can overlap with several different diseases. Many cases are often misclassified and underdiagnosed. We conducted a retrospective study on infants to assess how often physicians suspected pertussis and the actual frequency of Bordetella pertussis infections. METHODS We analyzed all infants...

Pertussis (also called whooping cough) is a highly contagious disease affecting human respiratory tract, due to the agents: Bordetella pertussis and less frequently Bordetella parapertussis (1). It remains a public health problem in many developed and developing countries. This disease is lifethreatening in infants under the age of three months and may also be serious in pregnant women and the ...