Bacteria Genomes - BORDETELLA AVIUM

Bordetella avium is a gram negative aerobic bacterium responsible for the avian disease referred to as bordetellosis. This bacterium was first isolated from young turkeys in 1967 and officially named Bordetella avium in 1984.

B. avium is most commonly thought of as a disease of commercially grown turkeys, but is also found in a variety of healthy wild and domesticated birds. It has been isolated from numerous other species of birds including chickens, finches, budgerigars, noble macaws, Japanese quail, ostriches, etc. This disease is worldwide and some speculate that it is being carried within 80% of caged cockatiels.

This disease is highly contagious producing an upper respiratory tract infection that most often leads to death in chicks. B. avium's path of infection is by colonizing the ciliated epithelium of the tracheal mucosa. As the disease progresses, it will destroy this outer layer of tissue along the respiratory tract and while doing so produce toxins that can affect other groups of tissue in the body. This infection will also predispose the bird to other infectious diseases. B. avium acts quite similarly to its human counterpart – Bordetella pertussis (whooping cough) however, there is no evidence that B. avium can infect humans. It is also closely related to Bordetella bronchiseptica, the causative agent of kennel cough in dogs.

The bacterium is easily transmitted by aerosols, leading to a rapid spread of the disease in facilities where birds are housed closely together. Bordetellosis in psittacine birds manifests with upper respiratory signs such as sneezing, nasal and ocular discharge, swelling of the infraorbital sinus, and lockjaw.

References:

http://members.tripod.com/~Cockatiels4U/bavium2.htm
http://www.sanger.ac.uk/Projects/B_avium/