J Med Microbiol 55 (2006), 1043-1051; DOI: 10.1099/jmm.0.46331-0
© 2006 Society for General Microbiology
ISSN 1473-5644
Bordetella holmesii DNA is not detected in nasopharyngeal swabs from Finnish and Dutch patients with suspected pertussis
Mia Antila1,2,
Qiushui He1,
Caroline de Jong3,
Ingrid Aarts3,
Harold Verbakel3,
Sylvia Bruisten4,
Suzanne Keller4,
Marjo Haanperä1,
Johanna Mäkinen5,
Erkki Eerola6,
Matti K. Viljanen6,
Jussi Mertsola7 and
Anneke van der Zee3
1 Pertussis Reference Laboratory, National Public Health Institute, Kiinamyllynkatu 13, 20520 Turku, Finland
2 Department of Pathology, Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland
3 Laboratory of Medical Microbiology, St Elisabeth Hospital, Tilburg, The Netherlands
4 The Area Health Authority (GGD), Municipal Health Laboratory, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
5 Mycobacterial Reference Laboratory, National Public Health Institute, Turku, Finland
6 Department of Medical Microbiology, University of Turku, Turku, Finland
7 Department of Pediatrics, Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland
Correspondence
Mia Antila
mia.antila{at}tyks.fi
Received 15 September 2005
Accepted 6 April 2006
Bordetella holmesii is a Gram-negative bacterium first identified in 1995. It can cause pertussis-like symptoms in humans. B. holmesii contains insertion sequences IS481 and IS1001, two frequently used targets in the PCR diagnosis of Bordetella pertussis and Bordetella parapertussis infections. To investigate the prevalence of B. holmesii in Finnish and Dutch patients with pertussis-like symptoms and whether B. holmesii has caused any false-positive results in diagnostic PCRs, B. holmesii-specific real-time PCRs were developed. The Finnish methods were conventional IS481 PCR and B. holmesii-specific real-time PCR (LightCycler, Roche) targeting the B. holmesii recA gene. The Dutch methods were IS481 and IS1001 PCRs with conventional or real-time formats and B. holmesii-specific real-time PCR targeting the homologue of IS1001. Of 11 319 nasopharyngeal swabs, 2804 were collected from Finnish patients from 2000 to 2003, and 8515 from Dutch patients from 1992 to 2003. B. holmesii DNA was not found in the samples analysed. The results suggest that B. holmesii is not among the causative agents of pertussis-like symptoms in Finnish and Dutch patients and thus does not in practice confound IS481 and IS1001 PCRs.
Abbreviations: NP, nasopharyngeal; PhHV, phocine herpes virus.
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