The Brazilian Purpuric Fever (BPF) is a systemic disease with many clinical features of meningococcal sepsis and is usually preceded by purulent conjunctivitis. The illness is caused by Haemophilus influenza biogroup aegyptius, which was associated exclusively with conjunctivitis. In this work construction of the las gene, hypothetically responsible for this virulence, were fusioned with ermAM cassette in Neisseria meningitidis virulent strains and had its DNA transfer to non BPF H. influenzae strains. The effect of the las transfer was capable to increase the cytokines TNFα and IL10 expression in Hec-1B cells line infected with these transformed mutants (in eight log scale of folding change RNA expression). This is the first molecular study involving the las transfer to search an elucidation of the pathogenic factors by horizontal intergeneric transfer from meningococci to H. influenzae.
Keywords: Brazilian purpuric fever; Haemophilus influenzae; Haemophilus influenzae biogroup aegyptius; Neisseria meningitidis; genetic transfer.