Human Anti-Pertactin IgG ELISA Kit

Between 1998 and 2009, Bordetella pertussis clinical isolates were collected during three periods, i.e., 1998 to 2001 (n = 102), 2004 to 2005 (n = 154), and 2007 to 2009 (n = 140), from nine countries with distinct vaccination programs, i.e., Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) analysis was performed according to standardized recommendations for epidemiological typing of B. pertussis. There were 81 different PFGE profiles, five of which (BpSR3, BpSR5, BpSR10, BpSR11, and BpSR12) were observed in 61% of the 396 isolates and shown to be predominant in almost all countries. The major profile, BpSR11, showed a decreasing trend from 25% to 30% in 1998 to 2005 to 13% in 2007 to 2009, and there were increases in BpSR3 and BpSR10 from 0% and 8% to 21% and 22%, respectively. One difference between these profiles is that BpSR11 contains isolates harboring the fim3-2 allele and BpSR3 and BpSR10 contain isolates harboring the fim3-1 allele. The total proportion of the five predominant profiles increased from 44% in 1998 to 2001 to 63% in 2004 to 2005 to 70% in 2007 to 2009. In conclusion, common PFGE profiles were identified in B. pertussis populations circulating in European countries with different vaccination programs and different vaccine coverages. These prevalent isolates contain the novel pertussis toxin promoter ptxP3 allele. However, there is evidence for diversifying selection between ptxP3 strains characterized by distinct PFGE profiles. This work shows that, even within a relatively short time span of 10 years, successful isolates which spread through Europe and cause large shifts in B. pertussis populations may emerge.

Pertussis has resurged during the last two decades in different countries. In particular in the 2010-2013 period large outbreaks were detected in US, Australia, UK and The Netherlands with significant mortality in infants. The epidemiological situation of pertussis points out the need to develop new vaccines and in this regard we previously developed a new vaccine based on outer membrane vesicles (OMVs) which have been shown to be safe and to induce protection in mice. Here we have further investigated the properties of OMVs vaccines; in particular we studied the contribution of pertussis toxin (PTx) and pertactin (Prn) in OMVs-mediated protection against pertussis. PTx-deficient OMVs and Pm-deficient OMVs were obtained from defective Bordetella pertussis mutants. The absence of PTx or Pm did compromise the protective capacity of the OMVs formulated as Tdap vaccine. Whereas the protective efficacy of the PTx-deficient OMVs in mice was comparable to Prn-deficient OMVs, the protective capacity of both of them was significantly impaired when it was compared with the wild type OMVs. Interestingly, using OMVs obtained from a B. pertussis strain which does not express any of the virulence factors but expresses the avirulent phenotype; we observed that the protective ability of such OMVs was lower than that of OMVs obtained from virulent B. pertussis phase. However, it was surprising that although the protective capacity of avirulent OMVs was lower, they were still protective in the used mice model. These results allow us to hypothesize that OMVs from avirulent phase shares protective components with all OMVs assayed. Using an immune proteomic strategy we identified some common components that could play an important role in protection against pertussis. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.