Site of 1st chlamydia exposure makes big difference

via chlamydiaguard.com

"Exposing the gut to chlamydia protects against subsequent infection in the genital tract and other tissues, researchers from UT Health San Antonio discovered. Chlamydia is the nation's most common sexually transmitted disease and causes infertility, ectopic pregnancy and pelvic inflammatory disease if left untreated.

"This research emphasizes the pre-exposure of chlamydia to the gastrointestinal (GI) tract as a vaccine," said Guangming Zhong, M.D., Ph.D., professor in the Joe R. & Teresa Lozano Long School of Medicine at UT Health San Antonio.

The protection is very robust and is across tissues, which is called transmucosal immunity. Protected sites include the genital tract and the lungs, said Dr. Zhong, whose faculty appointment is in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology & Molecular Genetics.

The discovery, reported Nov. 13, 2017, in Infection and Immunity, indicates that exposing the gut first to chlamydia is a novel avenue to explore in preventing the genital infection. However, when the genital tract is the site of initial chlamydia exposure, a different outcome may result. In this scenario, genital chlamydia spreads to the gut and induces responses that promote further disease in the genital tract. Dr. Zhong hypothesized this disease pattern in a review article published Dec. 27, 2017, in Trends in Microbiology..."

Learn more:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/01/180126122859.htm

First widely protective vaccine against chlamydia

via familyherbalhealth.com

"The first steps towards developing a vaccine against an insidious sexual transmitted infection (STI) have been accomplished by researchers at McMaster University.

Researchers at the Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research at McMaster have developed the first widely protective vaccine against chlamydia, a common STI that is mostly asymptomatic but impacts 113 million people around the world each year and can result in infertility.

In a study, recently published in the journal Vaccine, the researchers show that a novel chlamydial antigen known as BD584 is a potential vaccine candidate for the most common species of chlamydia known as Chlamydia trachomatis.

As most C. trachomatis infections are asymptomatic, chlamydia can often go untreated and lead to upper genital tract infections, pelvic inflammatory disease, and infertility. This is why the promise of a vaccine would be extremely beneficial, says David Bulir, co-author of the study.

"Vaccine development efforts in the past three decades have been unproductive and there is no vaccine approved for use in humans," said Bulir, who just finished his PhD in medical sciences at McMaster..."

Learn more:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/07/160719112535.htm