The intranasal infection of mice with Bordetella pertussis

Abstract

Bordetella pertussis instified by the intranasal route into the lungs of mice multiply without difficulty even from small inocula, although B. pertussis is not a natural pathogen for mice and mouse to mouse infection could not be demonstrated. When the initial dose was large the bacilli multiplied until the number in the lungs reached a critical level at which the mouse died. With smaller doses the critical level was never reached; a maximum count was achieved in 10–14 days, after which the number of viable bacilli declined. These smaller doses were consistently non-lethal and the figures for the viable counts when plotted gave curves of typical shape which were called ‘sublethal curves’. The decline corresponded in time with the development of specific immunity. Growth in the lung during the first 4 days of the infection was exponential, the rate of increase in the viable count depending on the size of the inoculum; the smaller the inoculum the faster the increase. With infecting doses at about the critical level, the numbers did not increase during the first 3–4 days, and with larger doses they decreased during the first 2–4 days of infection.Antiserum given with the inoculum reduced the number of viable organisms in the lung at once. Its effect was short-lived, because after 24 hr. the lung count rose; nevertheless, the initial check on the bacteria had converted a lethal in fection into a sublethal infection.