A unitarian hypothesis of altered reactivity to stress mediated byBordetella pertussis

Loss of protective antigen, histamine-sensitising factor and envelope polypeptides in cultural variants of Bordetella pertussis

“…According to the "unitarian hypothesis" of Levine and Pieroni (1966), PA and HSF activities are different biological manifestations of the same pertussis cell-wall protein. This hypothesis emerged from data on the heat and trypsin sensitivity of these activities and their parallel fractionation in cell extracts.…”

Cell-Envelope Proteins of Bordetella Pertussis

“…However, of greater relevance to the present work is the loss of PA, HSF, LPF, HA and heat-labile agglutinogens-all components of the phase-I cell envelope and having the properties of proteins. Several authors have suggested that some or all of these activities may represent different manifestations of the same molecule rather than of several distinct proteins (Levine and Pieroni, 1966;Sat0 and Arai, 1972;Munoz et al, 1973, Sat0 et al, 1973. It is in this context therefore that the finding of a consistent deletion of one and possibly two polypeptide bands during phase variation is of greatest interest.…”

<i>Bordetella pertussis</i> as a Beta-Adrenergic Blocking Agent

“…To the extent studied, it has been shown that many of these sensitizing and physiological effects of B. pertussis are elicited by the well-known histamine-sensitizing factor (HSF) in the cell wall which has been shown to be labile to heat and to trypsin [14,19,20]. It has been postulated that HSF elicits these effects by altering a fundamental physiological process which normally protects against toxic stimuli and maintains homeostasis [7,19,28].…”

“…Pertussis-vaccinated mice, for example, become markedly hypersensitive to such diverse stressors as histamine, peptone, anaphylactic shock, cold exposure and endotoxin [12,14,19].…”