“…Bartonella henselae is an ubiquitous flea-borne feline pathogen with a seroprevalence of 3-6 % in blood donors in the USA and Australia (Branley et al, 1996;Chomel et al, 1995;Foley et al, 1998;Jackson et al, 1993;Koehler et al, 1994), which is capable of infecting other animals and causing serious illness in humans (Anderson & Neuman, 1997). Key virulence attributes probably include the ability to express a rigid polar (putative type IV) pilin (Batterman et al, 1995) and invade epithelial cells (Batterman et al, 1995;Dehio et al, 1997), to stimulate angiogenesis in endothelial cells (Burgess & Anderson, 1998;Kempf et al, 2001), and to attenuate phagocyte attack (Fumarola et al, 1994).…”