Considering the circulation of Bordetella pertussis clinical strains among populations with high vaccination coverage, it is necessary to have a proper understanding of this bacterium causing whooping cough. Various techniques, which are available for studying B. pertussis, can facilitate a proper comparison between different populations. We genotypically analyzed a collection of two vaccine st...

Pertussis is an infectious disease of the respiratory tract caused by Bordetella pertussis. Despite the introduction of mass vaccination against pertussis in Finland in 1952, pertussis has remained an endemic disease with regular epidemics. To monitor changes in the Finnish B. pertussis population, 101 isolates selected from 1991 to 2003 and 21 isolates selected from 1953 to 1982 were studied t...

We examined Bordetella avium for virulence factors common to Bordetella pertussis, including pertussis toxin, filamentous hemagglutinin, adenylate cyclase, dermonecrotic toxin, and tracheal cytotoxin. B. avium produced a dermonecrotic toxin and a tracheal cytotoxin. The dermonecrotic toxin of B. avium is a 155,000-molecular-weight, heat-labile protein which was lethal for mice, guinea pigs, you...

introduction: the functional effects of orexin-b on the calcium spikes and excitability of the neuronal soma membrane of garden snail, helix aspersa were studied. methods: conventional intracellular recording, under the current clamp conditions was performed to examine the effects of orexin-b on the configuration and electrophysiological properties of calcium spikes. results: application of ore...

Recently, concern has been voiced about the potential effect that antigenic divergence of circulating strains of Bordetella pertussis might have on the efficacy of pertussis vaccines. In order to model antigenic drift of pertussis toxin, a critical component of many pertussis vaccines, and to examine the effects of such drift on antibody neutralization, we engineered a strain of B. pertussis to...

Whooping cough is considered a childhood disease, although there is growing evidence that children are infected by adult carriers. Additionally, increasing numbers of vaccinated adults are being diagnosed with Bordetella pertussis disease. Thus it is critical to understand how B. pertussis remains endemic even in highly vaccinated or immune populations. Here we used the mouse model to examine t...

Abstract Bordetella pertussis is the causative agent of whooping cough. The transition from whole cell (wP) to acellular vaccines (aPs) triggered an increase in incidence despite wide-spread vaccine coverage. aPs contain protein antigens purified B. pertussis: pertactin, fimbriae, filamentous hemagglutinin (FHA), and toxin (PT). Antibodies are critical for protection against pertussis, have bee...

Multiple strains of Bordetella parapertussis and B. bronchiseptica were examined for the presence of nucleotide sequences which hybridized with a cloned 4.5-kilobase (kb) fragment of B. pertussis DNA containing the genes responsible for pertussis toxin expression. All six B. parapertussis strains tested had nucleic acid sequences that hybridized with the cloned 4.5-kb fragment in Southern blot ...

Immunization with whole-cell pertussis vaccines (WCV) containing heat-killed Bordetella pertussis cells and with acellular vaccines containing genetically or chemically detoxified pertussis toxin (PT) in combination with filamentous hemagglutinin (FHA), pertactin (Prn), or fimbriae confers protection in humans and animals against B. pertussis infection. In an earlier study we demonstrated that ...