Basic analysis of pathogenesis of whooping cough

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

To understand the mechanism of paroxysmal cough observed in whooping cough, Bordetella pertussis infection, we established an animal model that reproduce the paroxysmal cough by using B. bronchiseptica, which is closely related to B. pertussis. This model animal showed coughing after intranasal infection by 500 cfu of B. bronchiseptica. In the course of analyzing the B. bronchiseptica infection, we succeeded in isolating a mutant strain that did not induce coughing in the model animal. A comparison of the genomes of the mutant strain and the parental wild type strain revealed a single-base insertion in a gene designated crg1. A strain deficient in crg1 was found not to cause the paroxysmal cough in the animals, showing that crg1 might be involved in the paroxysmal cough. Further work is in progress to characterize the crg1 gene.