Genital infection with herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV -2) is increasingly common worldwide. The aims of this thesis were to investigate the epidemiology and natural history of genital herpes among GUM attendees with symptomatic genital herpes, and among HIV-l infected individuals. In our study of GUM attendees in the UK, we demonstrated HSV -1 to account for 9% of first episodes of genital he...

Following sexual transmission, Chlamydia trachomatis specifically targets genital tract epithelial cells. Because epithelial cells are readily recognized by CD8+ T cells, the response of CD8+ T cells to Chlamydia infection has been explored in a number of studies. It has been shown that CD8+ T cells are present in the genital tracts of mice following C. trachomatis infection, but the specificit...

Heterosexual transmission of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) appears to occur readily in Africa but less commonly in North America and Europe. We conducted a case-control study among men attending a clinic for sexually transmitted diseases in Nairobi to determine the prevalence of HIV infection and the risk factors involved. HIV antibody was detected in 11.2 percent of 340 men who enroll...

0

Heterosexual transmission of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is the most frequent mode of infection worldwide. However, the immediate events between exposure to infectious virus and establishment of infection are still poorly understood. This study investigates parameters of HIV infection of human female genital tissue in vitro using an explant culture model. In particular, we investigated t...

BACKGROUND Human papillomavirus (HPV) infection is the principal cause of invasive cervical cancer. There is some evidence that male circumcision (MC) may protect against HPV infection and related disease in both men and women. The purpose of this study was to conduct a systematic review of the literature to assess the association between MC and genital HPV infection indicators including genita...

Murine vaginal infection with the obligate intracellular bacterium Chlamydia muridarum is commonly used as a model for ascending Chlamydia infections of the human female genital tract. Gamma interferon-producing Th1 cells, in concert with other mononuclear infiltrates, primarily mediate antichlamydial immunity. However, many factors modify this response, including the bacterial load. To investi...

BACKGROUND Compartmentalization of HIV-1 between the genital tract and blood was noted in half of 57 women included in 12 studies primarily using cell-free virus. To further understand differences between genital tract and blood viruses of women with chronic HIV-1 infection cell-free and cell-associated virus populations were sequenced from these tissues, reasoning that integrated viral DNA inc...

Vaccination strategies for protection against sexually transmitted diseases are lacking due to an incomplete understanding of genital tract T cell responses. This thesis dissects the generation of T helper subsets, including the recently discovered Th17 subset, during genital tract infection with a common sexually transmitted pathogen, Chlamydia trachomatis, and addresses vaccine requirements f...

While Chlamydia trachomatis infections are frequently asymptomatic, mechanisms that regulate host response to this intracellular Gram-negative bacterium remain undefined. This investigation thus used peripheral blood mononuclear cells and endometrial tissue from women with or without Chlamydia genital tract infection to better define this response. Initial genome-wide microarray analysis reveal...