[Pasteurella: insights into the virulence determinants of a heterogenous bacterial type]

Pasteurella (P.) multocida is the causative agent of numerous economically relevant diseases worldwide. These are enzootic bronchopneumonia in cattle and sheep and hemorraghic septicemia in cattle and buffaloes, Rhinitis atrophicans in swine, snuffles in rabbit, and fowl cholera. All disease complexes are associated with certain capsular and somatic antigens. Even as human pathogen P. multocida is of increasing importance, causing wound infections, and even septicemia, meningitis, and endocarditis. Despite extensive research activities including the genome analysis of one fowl cholera isolate in the year 2001 there are a lot of open questions concerning the molecular pathogenic mechanisms. Problems encountered are the high antigenic variability and the wide host spectrum of P. multocida as well as different courses of infection. In consequence there are enormous difficulties in producing vaccines. Transcriptomics and proteomics hopefully will give new insight into the pathogenesis of P. multocida infections in different hosts. A frequent problem particular in classical diagnostic laboratories is the diagnosis of P. multocida and its differentiation from other P. species and Mannheimia (M.) haemolytica. The biochemical identification of P. multocida is not reliable due to variable phenotypical characteristics often caused by different culture conditions, and it is time consuming and cost-intensive. Extensive molecular biologic studies concerning the prevalence and distribution of virulence associated genes known so far in P. species, which will be described in detail in this paper, could contribute to the establishment of a diagnostic tool, such as a multiplex polymerase chain reaction, that would provide a cheap and time-saving identification and characterization of wildtype strains.