Transplacental and transcolostral immunity to pertussis in a mouse model using acellular pertussis vaccine

The protective activity of acellular pertussis vaccine was comparable to that of whole cell vaccine against intracerebral and aerosol infection with Bordetella pertussis in mice. Suckling mice, six to 10 days old, born of mothers immunized with acellular or whole cell pertussis vaccine were challenged with an aerosol of B pertussis strain 18323, and body weight, death, leukocytosis, and viable counts in the lungs were monitored. Protective activity was transferred from mother mice to their offspring through milk and placenta (yolk sac), with substantially greater protection being transferred through the mammary gland. Pertussis, or whooping cough, is caused by a non-invasive infection of the host with Bordetella per-tussis [1, 2]. It is still a troublesome disease, espe-cially for young children who are at highest risk from the disease [3, 4]. Despite the fact that vacci-nation against pertussis has been effective in con-trolling the disease, there is a need for a new typ