Abstract

Receive: RSS Feeds, eTOCs, free email alerts (when new articles cite this article), more» Information about commercial reprint orders: http://cvi.asm.org/site/misc/reprints.xhtml To subscribe to to another ASM Journal go to: http://journals.asm.org/site/subscriptions/ CLINICAL AND DIAGNOSTIC LABORATORY IMMUNOLOGY, July 1997, p. 393–399 1071-412X/97/$04.00 0 Copyright © 1997, American Society for Microbiology Vol. 4, No. 4 HANY SAHLY* AND RAINER PODSCHUN Department of Medical Microbiology and Virology, University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany INTRODUCTION Since Friedlander in 1883 first demonstrated capsulated rod¨ shaped bacteria in the lungs of patients dying of pneumonia, Klebsiella has been known to physicians primarily as the pathogen causing “Friedlander’s pneumonia.” The productionofenor¨ mous amounts of capsular polysaccharides in vivo as well as on agar medium is characteristic of bacteria of this genus and is unique among the members of the family Enterobacteriaceae, to which Klebsiella belongs. Despite the discovery of other virulence factors such as fimbriae, siderophores, and O antigens (104), the efforts to clarify the pathogenic mechanisms of Klebsiella mainly focus on their capsular antigens, which are considered to be the ultimate determinants of their pathogenicity. Thus, Klebsiella is regarded as a paradigm for systemic infections caused by capsulated bacteria. In contrast to other capsulated pathogens such