Morphology of cells and hemagglutinogens of Bordetella species: resolution of substructural units in fimbriae of Bordetella pertussis.

The morphology of cells and the hemagglutinogens isolated from cultures of Bordetella pertussis, Bordetella bronchiseptica, and Bordetella parapertussis were studied by electron microscopy with the negative-staining technique. Cells of all three species had long, thin (3 nm thick), peritrichously arranged fimbriae on the cell surface. Similar structures were found in purified hemagglutinogen preparations together with shorter fimbrial structures 3 nm thick and from 40 to 100 nm long. In one experiment, long, thin fimbriae isolated from B. pertussis were found to be arranged in a crystalline structure on the specimen grid after negative staining. Optical diffraction analysis with a filtering technique performed on micrographs of these structures revealed 12.5-nm-long substructures within individual fimbriae. Further analysis resolved each of these structures into three globules, a central globule 3.5 nm in diameter and two diametrically opposed globules 2.5 nm in diameter. Based on this substructural composition, it is suggested that subunits of the individual fimbriae are connected by fragile regions. The presence of such regions would explain the size heterogeneity of the filamentous structures observed in preparations of hemagglutinogens isolated from cultures of B. pertussis and B. bronchiseptica. The concept that the short filamentous structures present in purified preparations of hemagglutinogens originate from the surface fimbriae present on the cells is supported.