In a collection of 58 snakes comprising predominantly Eurasian vipers in Switzerland, five snakes died unexpectedly during hibernation from 2009 to 2012. In one snake, organisms resembling chlamydiae were detected by immunohistochemistry in multiple histiocytic granulomas. Real-time quantitative PCR and microarray analysis were used to determine the presence of Chlamydia pneumoniae in tissue sa...

Chlamydia are Gram negative obligate intracellular bacteria of eukaryotic cells and have a unique developmental cycle consisting of formation of infectious particle called elementary body and non-infectious particle called reticulate body. They are included in the order Chlamydiales and the order Chlamydiales belongs to the class Chlamydiae, phylum Chlamydiae, domain bacteria. The genus Chlamyd...

Asthma is the most common chronic disease in childhood and it a major global health problem. characterized by airway inflammation pathogenetic mechanisms leading to asthma are likely be diverse, influenced multiple genetic polymorphisms as well environmental factors, including respiratory tract infections. Chlamydia pneumoniae human pathogen belonging Chlamydiae family. Since its recognition 19...

Lymphocytes are a potential host cell for Chlamydophila pneumoniae, although why the bacteria must hide in lymphocytes remains unknown. Meanwhile, interferon (IFN)-γ is a crucial factor for eliminating chlamydiae from infected cells through indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO) expression, resulting in depletion of tryptophan. We therefore assessed if lymphocytes could work as a shelter for the bac...

A number of bacteriophages belonging to the Microviridae have been described infecting chlamydiae. Phylogenetic studies divide the Chlamydiaceae into two distinct genera, Chlamydia and Chlamydophila, containing three and six different species, respectively. In this work we investigated the biological properties and host range of the recently described bacteriophage Chp2 that was originally disc...

Chlamydiae are obligate intracellular pathogens that proliferate only inside a vacuole, called an inclusion. Chlamydial Inc proteins are known to be a major component of the inclusion membrane, but little is known about the gene number and function. The Inc proteins share very low sequence similarity but a similar hydropathy profile among them. Using the hydropathy profile, we computationally s...

This paper describes the characterization and taxonomic status of N16, a chlamydial isolate from the respiratory tract of a horse. N16 contains plasmid DNA, has normal elementary body morphology and its inclusions do not stain with iodine. Its major outer-membrane protein (MOMP) gene was completely sequenced and compared with the MOMP genes of Chlamydia pneumoniae, C. psittaci, C. trachomatis a...

Chlamydophila pneumoniae is an important respiratory pathogen. In this study we characterized C. pneumoniae strain TW183-mediated activation of human small airway epithelial cells (SAEC) and the bronchial epithelial cell line BEAS-2B and demonstrated time-dependent secretion of granulocyte macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) upon stimulation. TW183 activated p38 mitogen-activated prot...

The major outer membrane protein (MOMP) of Chlamydia trachomatis serovariants is known to be an immunodominant surface antigen. Moreover, it is known that the C. trachomatis MOMP elicits antibodies that recognize both linear and conformational antigenic determinants. In contrast, it has been reported that the MOMP of Chlamydia pneumoniae is not surface exposed and is immunorecessive. We hypothe...

Chlamydia spp. are obligate intracellular pathogens that replicate within a vacuole termed the inclusion. Chlamydiae extensively modify the inclusion membrane via the insertion of chlamydial inclusion membrane proteins (Incs) which decorate the cytosolic face of the inclusion. We have assessed the overall relatedness and phylogeny of Incs in order to identify potential evolutionary trends. Desp...