Brucellosis is a disease that causes severe economic losses for livestock farms worldwide. Brucella melitensis, B. abortus and B. suis, which are transmitted between animals both vertically and horizontally, cause abortion and infertility in their primary natural hosts - goats and sheep (B. melitensis), cows (B. abortus) and sows (B. suis). Brucella spp. infect not only their preferred hosts bu...

Helicobacter (H.) suis colonizes the stomach of the majority of pigs as well as a minority of humans worldwide. Infection causes chronic inflammation in the stomach of the host, however without an effective clearance of the bacteria. Currently, no information is available about possible mechanisms H. suis utilizes to interfere with the host immune response. This study describes the effect on va...

A subunit vaccine candidate was produced from Brucella suis 145 (biovar 4; expressing both the A antigen of Brucella abortus and the M antigen of Brucella melitensis). The preparation consisted mostly of polysaccharide (PS; >90% [wt/wt]; both cell-associated PS and exo-PS were combined) and a small amount of protein (1 to 3%) with no apparent nucleic acids. Vaccinated mice were protected (these...

The putative carboxyl-terminal processing protease (CtpA) of Brucella suis 1330 is a member of a novel family of endoproteases involved in the maturation of proteins destined for the cell envelope. The B. suis CtpA protein shared up to 77% homology with CtpA proteins of other bacteria. A CtpA-deficient Brucella strain (1330DeltactpA), generated by allelic exchange, produced smaller colonies on ...

Helicobacter suis causes gastric lesions in pigs and humans. This study aimed to evaluate the protective efficacy of immunization with combinations of the H. suis urease subunit B (UreB) and γ-glutamyl transpeptidase (GGT), both recombinantly expressed in Escherichia coli (rUreB and rGGT, respectively). Mice were intranasally immunized with rUreB, rGGT or a combination of both proteins, adminis...

The aroC gene of the facultative intracellular pathogen Brucella suis was cloned and sequenced. The cloned aroC gene complements Escherichia coli and Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium aroC mutants. A B. suis aroC mutant was found to be unable to grow in a defined medium without aromatic compounds. The mutant was highly attenuated in tissue culture (THP1 macrophages and HeLa cells) and mur...

Streptococcus suis, more particularly serotype 2, is a major swine pathogen and an emerging zoonotic agent worldwide that mainly causes meningitis, septicemia, endocarditis, and pneumonia. Although several potential virulence factors produced by S. suis have been identified in the last decade, the pathogenesis of S. suis infections is still not fully understood. In the present study, we showed ...

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BACKGROUND The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP) of China is an extensive pastoral and semi-pastoral area, and because of poverty and bad hygiene conditions, Brucella is highly prevalent in this region. In order to adequately prevent this disease in the QTP region it is important to determine the identity of Brucella species that caused the infection. METHODS A total of 65 Brucella isolates were ob...

Brucella suis is a Gram-negative, facultative intracellular pathogen that has pigs as its preferred host, but it can also infect humans. Here, we report the draft genome sequences of two B. suis strains that were isolated from the same patient, 8 years apart.