Bartonella henselae and Bartonella clarridgeiae infection in domestic cats from The Philippines.

Abstract

Abstract. One hundred seven domestic cats from The Philippines were serologically tested to establish the prevalence of Bartonella infection. A subset of 31 of these cats also had whole blood collected to tentatively isolate Bartonella strains. Bartonella henselae and B. clarridgeiae were isolated from 19 (61%) of these cats. Bartonella henselae type I was isolated from 17 (89%) of the 19 culture-positive cats. Six cats (31%) were infected with B. clarridgeiae, of which four were coinfected with B. henselae. Sixty-eight percent (73 of 107) and 65% (70 of 107) of the cats had antibodies to B. henselae and B. clarridgeiae, respectively, detected by an immunofluorescence antibody (IFA) test at a titer Ն 1:64. When tested by enzyme immunoassay (EIA), 67 cats (62.6%) had antibodies to B. henselae and 71 cats (66.4%) had antibodies to B. clarridgeiae. Compared with the IFA test, the B. henselae EIA had a sensitivity of 90.4% and a specificity of 97%, with positive and negative predictive values of 98.5% and 82.5%, respectively. Similarly, the B. clarridgeiae EIA had a sensitivity of 97% and a specificity of 92% specificity, with positive and negative predictive values of 95.8% and 94.4%, respectively. The presence of antibodies to Bartonella was strongly associated with flea infestation. Domestic cats represent a large reservoir of Bartonella infection in the Philippines.

Prevalence of Bartonella infection in domestic cats in Denmark

“…The EDTA tubes were frozen at -70 o C until plated. Serum separating tubes were centrifuged at 500 × g, the serum removed and frozen at -20 o C. Blood samples were cultured on heart infusion agar containing 5% rabbit blood for isolation of B. henselae or B. clarridgeiae [12] and onto chocolate agar plates for isolation of B. koehlerae, as previously described [15]. The plates were incubated at 35 o C with 5% CO 2 for at least four weeks.…”

“…Population characteristics of 93 cats from Denmark. (gltA) using HhaI and TaqI endonucleases, and the 16S-rRNA gene using DdeI restriction endonuclease [12,15]. Positive control samples included DNA from the three references strains of B. henselae, B. clarridgeiae or B. koehlerae and a sample with no DNA template was used as a negative control.…”

“…Previous epidemiological studies of Bartonella infection in domestic cats have demonstrated serological prevalences ranging from 4% to 81%, and bacteremia prevalence of up to 60% [7,9,12,25,26]. In Europe, Bartonella infection in cats, based on serology or bacterial isolation, has been reported from Austria [2], France [10,20,21,23], Germany [3,22,39], Switzerland [17], The Netherlands [6], Portugal [7] and the United Kingdom [4].…”

Experimental infection of specific pathogen free (SPF) cats with two different strains of Bartonella henselae type I: A comparative study

“…The plates were examined 2-3 times a week for any bacterial growth. The isolated strains were confirmed to be B. henselae by PCR/RFLP of the citrate synthase gene using Hha I and Taq I endonucleases [15]. The number of colonies was counted and calculated as CFU/mL.…”

“…In most of Europe, B. henselae type II is the dominant type [5,7,18,30,53]. On the contrary, in Asia, 70 to 80% of B. henselae isolates belong to type I [15,16,41].…”