Pasteurella multocida causes atrophic rhinitis in swine and fowl cholera in birds, and is a secondary agent in respiratory syndromes. Pathogenesis and virulence factors involved are still poorly understood. The aim of this study was to detect 22 virulence-associated genes by PCR, including capsular serogroups A, B and D genes and to evaluate the antimicrobial susceptibility of P. multocida stra...

Meningococcal disease is communicable by close contact or droplet aerosols. Striking features are high case fatality rates and peak incidences of invasive disease in infants, toddlers and adolescents. Vaccine development is hampered by bacterial immune evasion strategies including molecular mimicry.As for Haemophilus influenzae and Streptococcus pneumoniae, no vaccine has therefore been develop...

Streptococcus pneumoniae includes the two serotypes 6A and 6B as well as two recently discovered serotypes, 6C and 6D, in which the wciN gene is replaced by wciN within the cps locus. Serotype 6D occurrence in Asia (2, 4), the Fiji islands (5) and Europe (7, 9) has recently been reported. To our knowledge, we describe here the first description of serotype 6D isolates identified within the Amer...

Capsular polysaccharide-protein conjugate vaccines protect individuals from invasive disease and decrease carriage, which reduces spread of the organism in the population. In contrast, antibodies elicited by plain polysaccharide or protein antigen-based meningococcal (Men) vaccines have little or no effect on decreasing carriage. In this study, we investigated the mechanism by which vaccine-ind...

Antibodies to Escherichia coli J5, a uridine 5'-diphosphate-galactose epimerase-less mutant of E. coli 0111, neutralized meningococcal endotoxemia from all three major capsular serogroups. We chose the dermal necrosis of the local Shwartzman phenomenon and the renal cortical necrosis of the general Shwartzman phenomenon as assays because these are the hallmarks of meningococcemia, and because m...

In the past decade, several outbreaks of cholera have been reported to be caused by Vibrio cholerae O139, a strain which differs from the more common O1 strain in that the former is encapsulated. The hexasaccharide repeating subunit has been isolated from the V. cholerae O139 capsular polysaccharide by digestion with a recently discovered polysaccharide lyase derived from a bacteriophage specif...

BACKGROUND Streptococcus pneumoniae has more than 95 distinct serotypes described to date. However, only certain serotypes are more likely to cause pneumococcal diseases. Thus serotype surveillance is important for vaccine formula design as well as in post-vaccine serotype shift monitor. The goal of this study was to develop a practical screening assay for ten Shenzhen China common pneumococcal...