ABSTRACT
The Brazilian Purpuric Fever (BPF) is a systemic disease with many clinical features of meningococcal sepsis and is usually preceded by purulent conjunctivitis. The illness is caused by Haemophilus influenza biogroup aegyptius, which was associated exclusively with conjunctivitis. In this work construction of the las gene, hypothetically responsible for this virulence, were fusioned with ermAM cassette in Neisseria meningitidis virulent strains and had its DNA transfer to non BPF H. influenzae strains. The effect of the las transfer was capable to increase the cytokines TNFα and IL10 expression in Hec-1B cells line infected with these transformed mutants (in eight log scale of folding change RNA expression). This is the first molecular study involving the las transfer to search an elucidation of the pathogenic factors by horizontal intergeneric transfer from meningococci to H. influenzae.
Subject(s)
Humans , Cytokines/biosynthesis , Epithelial Cells/immunology , Epithelial Cells/microbiology , Haemophilus Infections/immunology , Haemophilus influenzae/immunology , Virulence Factors/immunology , Brazil , Cell Line , Cloning, Molecular , Haemophilus Infections/microbiology , Haemophilus Infections/pathology , Haemophilus influenzae/genetics , Recombinant Proteins/genetics , Recombinant Proteins/immunology , Transformation, Bacterial , Virulence Factors/geneticsABSTRACT
The capsular switching process indicates the action of specific capsular antibodies on the meningococcal strains adaptation. Different antibodies were employed for assessing the effect of opsonization on the transformation of Neisseria meningitidis serogroups C and W135. These analyses showed the blocking action of the specific capsular antibodies on the meningococcal transformation capacity. Thus, the blocking effect of these antibodies on N. meningitidis transformation process was demonstrated. This effect could be involved in the capsular switching process and the found data might open new subjects for scientific exploratio.