Bartonella quintana in head louse nits

Abstract

The body louse is the principal vector of Bartonella quintana, the causative organism of trench fever, but B. quintana DNA has also been detected in adult head lice. Because there are no characteristics that distinguish the body louse from the head louse, we decided to test head louse nits collected from a homeless man for the presence of B. quintana DNA. All of the sampled nits tested positive by real-time PCR, and intergenic spacer region (ITS) gene sequences shared 100% similarity to the corresponding ITS fragment of the genome of B. quintana. The role of the head louse in the maintenance and transmission of B. quintana remains to be determined. FEMS Immunology & Medical Microbiology © 2011 Federation of European Microbiological Societies. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd. No claim to original French government works.