Is Bordetella pertussis clonal?

Abstract

Objective: To establish whether Bordetella pertussis is essentially clonal.

Design: Analysis of restriction fragments of XbaI digests of DNA from clinical and control isolates of B pertussis by pulse field gel electrophoresis.

Materials: 105 isolates of B pertussis: 67 clinical isolates from throughout the United Kingdom and 23 from Germany (collected during the previous 18 months); vaccine strains 2991 and 3700; and 13 control isolates from Manchester University's culture collection.

Main outcome measures: Frequency of DNA types according to country of origin and classical serotyping.

Results: 17 DNA types were identified on the basis of the variation in 11 fragments, banding at 200-412 kilobases; 15 types were found in the clinical and control isolates from the United Kingdom and seven in those from Germany. There was no correlation with serotype. DNA type 1 was the commonest overall (22/105 strains, 22%), predominating in serotypes 1,2 and 1,2,3 and including the vaccine strains but not the isolates from Germany.

Conclusions: Current infections due to B pertussis are not caused by a clonal pathogen as multiple strains are circulating in a given population at one time. There is also considerable epidemiological variation in the pathogen population between countries. These findings may have implications for the design of acellular vaccines.