Chlamydia trachomatis: the Persistent Pathogen.

ABSTRACT: Chlamydia trachomatis is an obligate intracellular bacterium whose only natural host is humans. Although presenting as asymptomatic in most women, genital tract chlamydial infections are a leading cause of pelvic inflammatory disease, tubal factor infertility, and ectopic pregnancy. C. trachomatis has evolved successful mechanisms to avoid destruction by autophagy and the host immune system and persist within host epithelial cells. The intracellular form of this organism, the reticulate body, can enter into a persistent nonreplicative but viable state under unfavorable conditions. The infectious form of the organism, the elementary body, is again generated when the immune attack subsides. In its persistent form, C. trachomatis ceases to produce its major structural and membrane components,

SUBMITTER: Witkin SS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5629669 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature