Development of a transformation system for Chlamydia trachomatis: restoration of glycogen biosynthesis by acquisition of a plasmid shuttle vector.

ABSTRACT: Chlamydia trachomatis remains one of the few major human pathogens for which there is no transformation system. C. trachomatis has a unique obligate intracellular developmental cycle. The extracellular infectious elementary body (EB) is an infectious, electron-dense structure that, following host cell infection, differentiates into a non-infectious replicative form known as a reticulate body (RB). Host cells infected by C. trachomatis that are treated with penicillin are not lysed because this antibiotic prevents the maturation of RBs into EBs. Instead the RBs fail to divide although DNA replication continues. We have exploited these observations to develop a transformation protocol based on expression of β-lactamase that utilizes rescue from the penicillin-induced phenotype. We constructe

SUBMITTER: Wang Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3178582 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature