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Evolution of Bordetella pertussis over a 23-year period in France, 1996 to 2018
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View Affiliations Hide AffiliationsSylvain Brissesylvain.brisse pasteur.fr
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French pertussis microbiology study group: Nathalie Brieu, Farida Hamdad, Marie Kempf, Hélène Pailhoriès, Cécile Jensen, Philippe Lehours, Jennifer Guiraud, Hervé Le Bars, Christophe Isnard, Nathalie Wilhelm, Alain Le Coustumier, Julien Delmas, Dominique De Briel, Laurent Souply, Saïd Aberrane,, Marie Coudé, Fabien Garnier, Ghislaine Descours, Hélène Jean-Pierre, Corentine Alauzet, Sophie-Anne Gibaud, Stéphane Bonacorsi, Lucien Brasme, Ludovic Lemée, Christelle Koebel, Philippe Lanotte, Stéphane Bland, Hélène Petitprez, Didier Raffenot, Marion Levast, Florence Doucet-Populaire, Nadège Bourgeois-Nicolaos, Christophe Burucoa, Florence Grattard, Stéphanie Marque-JuilletView Citation Hide Citation
Citation style for this article: . Evolution of Bordetella pertussis over a 23-year period in France, 1996 to 2018. Euro Surveill. 2021;26(37):pii=2001213. https://doi.org/10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2021.26.37.2001213 Received: 16 Jun 2020; Accepted: 26 Feb 2021
Abstract
Bordetella pertussis is the main agent of whooping cough. Vaccination with acellular pertussis vaccines has been largely implemented in high-income countries. These vaccines contain 1 to 5 antigens: pertussis toxin (PT), filamentous haemagglutinin (FHA), pertactin (PRN) and/or fimbrial proteins (FIM2 and FIM3). Monitoring the emergence of B. pertussis isolates that might partially escape vaccine-induced immunity is an essential component of public health strategies to control whooping cough.
We aimed to investigate temporal trends of fimbriae serotypes and vaccine antigen-expression in B. pertussis over a 23-year period in France (1996–2018).
Isolates (n = 2,280) were collected through hospital surveillance, capturing one third of hospitalised paediatric pertussis cases. We assayed PT, FHA and PRN production by Western blot (n = 1,428) and fimbriae production by serotyping (n = 1,058). Molecular events underlying antigen deficiency were investigated by genomic sequencing.
The proportion of PRN-deficient B. pertussis isolates has increased steadily from 0% (0/38) in 2003 to 48.4% (31/64) in 2018 (chi-squared test for trend, p < 0.0001), whereas only 5 PT-, 5 FHA- and 9 FIM-deficient isolates were found. Impairment of PRN production was predominantly due to IS481 insertion within the prn gene or a 22 kb genomic inversion involving the prn promoter sequence, indicative of convergent evolution. FIM2-expressing isolates have emerged since 2011 at the expense of FIM3.
B. pertussis is evolving through the rapid increase of PRN-deficient isolates and a recent shift from FIM3 to FIM2 expression. Excluding PRN, the loss of vaccine antigen expression by circulating B. pertussis isolates is epidemiologically insignificant.
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