BACKGROUND Recovery of the intracellular bacterium Chlamydia pneumoniae from atherosclerotic plaques has initiated large studies on antimicrobial therapy in coronary artery disease. The basic concept that antibiotic therapy may eliminate and prevent vascular infection was evaluated in vitro and in vivo by examining the antibiotic susceptibility of C pneumoniae in circulating human monocytes, wh...

Chlamydiae sp. are obligate intracellular pathogens that cause a variety of diseases in humans. The adhesion of Chlamydiae to the eukaryotic host cell is a pivotal step in pathogenesis. The adhesin family of polymorphic membrane proteins (Pmp) in Chlamydia pneumoniae consists of 21 members. Pmp21 binds to the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR). Pmps contain large numbers of FXXN (where X i...

UNLABELLED Chlamydiae are well known for their species specificity and tissue tropism, and yet the individual species and strains show remarkable genomic synteny and share an intracellular developmental cycle unique in the microbial world. Only a relatively few chlamydial genes have been linked to specific disease or tissue tropism. Here we show that chlamydial species associated with human inf...

The fundamental role of programmed cell death in host defense is highlighted by the multitude of anti-apoptotic strategies evolved by various microbes, including the well-known obligate intracellular bacterial pathogens Chlamydia trachomatis and Chlamydia (Chlamydophila) pneumoniae. As inhibition of apoptosis is assumed to be essential for a successful infection of humans by these chlamydiae, w...

Of the variety of mycoplasma species, the smallest of free living organisms, only M. pneumoniae (Eaton agent) produces respiratory infections. These include pneumonia, tracheobronchitis, pharyngitis, and in 20% of cases, asymptomatic invasion . M. pneumoniae is one of a variety of organisms, including viruses, rickettsiae, and chlamydiae (psittacosis), that cause primary atypical pneumonia (PAP...

Chlamydiae are intracellular bacterial pathogens that infect mucosal surfaces, i.e., the epithelium of the lung, genital tract, and conjunctiva of the eye, as well as alveolar macrophages. In the present study, we show that pulmonary surfactant protein A (SP-A) and surfactant protein D (SP-D), lung collectins involved in innate host defense, enhance the phagocytosis of Chlamydia pneumoniae and ...

Chlamydiae are small bacteria that, as part of their growth cycle, have an obligate intracellular existence. The small infectious or elementary bodies, about 300 nm in diameter, attach to and are taken into cells where they develop into larger reticulate bodies. These divide by binary fission and are converted into new elementary bodies that are released from the cell. The cycle takes 48 to 72 ...

The respiratory pathogen Chlamydia (Chlamydophila) pneumoniae is associated with chronic diseases, including atherosclerosis and giant-cell arteritis, which are accompanied by the occurrence of these obligate intracellular bacteria in blood vessels. There, C. pneumoniae seems to be present in a persistent state. Persistence is characterized by modified bacterial metabolism and morphology, as we...

BACKGROUND Chlamydia trachomatis (Ct) and Chlamydia pneumoniae (Cp) are medically significant infectious agents associated with various chronic human pathologies. Nevertheless, specific roles in disease progression or initiation are incompletely defined. Both pathogens infect established cell lines in vitro and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) has detected Chlamydia DNA in various clinical speci...

To the Editor-According to Campbell et al. [1] in their recent study of Chlamydia pneumoniae in coronary tissue, staining with a Chlamydia-specific monoclonal antibody detected chlamydiae in 45% of the atherectomy specimens from patients with atherosclerotic plaque. However, staining appeared only in macrophages; smooth muscle cells did not stain, a result that appears to contradict previous fi...