Evolution of the exclusively human pathogen Neisseria gonorrhoeae: Human-specific engagement of immunoregulatory Siglecs.

ABSTRACT: Neisseria gonorrhoeae causes the sexually transmitted disease gonorrhea exclusively in humans and uses multiple strategies to infect, including acquisition of host sialic acids that cap and mask lipooligosaccharide termini, while restricting complement activation. We hypothesized that gonococci selectively target human anti-inflammatory sialic acid-recognizing Siglec receptors on innate immune cells to blunt host responses and that pro-inflammatory Siglecs and SIGLEC pseudogene polymorphisms represent host evolutionary adaptations to counteract this interaction. N. gonorrhoeae can indeed engage multiple human but not chimpanzee CD33rSiglecs expressed on innate immune cells and in the genitourinary tract--including Siglec-11 (inhibitory) and Siglec-16 (activating), whic

SUBMITTER: Landig CS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6346652 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature