Seroprevalence of Bartonella henselae in cats in Germany

Bartonella henselae and B. quintana infections in man are associated with v arious clinical manifestations including cat-scratch disease, bacillary ang iomatosis and bacteraemia, While cats are the natural reservoir for B. hens elae, the source of B. quintana is unclear. In this study, the sera of 713 cats from Germany were examined for the presence of antibodies against B. h enselae, B. quintana or Afipia felis by an indirect immunofluorescence assa y (IFA). Bartonella-specific antibody titres of greater than or equal to 50 were found in 15.0% of the cats. There was substantial cross-reactivity am ong the various Bartonella antigens, although single sera showed high titre s against B. henselae but not against B. quintana and vice versa. Antibodie s against A. felis were not detected in any of these cats. Statistical anal ysis indicated that there is no correlation between Bartonella infections a nd the sex, age or breed of the cat or its hunting behavior. There was also no correlation between bartonella and toxoplasma infections in cats. Howev er, whereas 16.8% of cats from northern Germany had B. quintana-specific an tibodies, only 8.0% of cats from southern Germany were seropositive for B. quintana. No statistically significant difference was found for B. henselae . IFA-positive and IFA-negative sera were used for immunoblot analysis incl uding B, henselae and B. quintana. Marked reactivity was observed with prot ein bands at 80, 76, 73, 65, 37, 33 and 15 kDa. The results of this study s uggest that B. henselae, and possibly a B. quintana-related pathogen, but n ot A. felis, are common in cats in Germany, and that there are differences in the geographic distribution of bartonella infections in cats.