Home
Subjects
chlamydia

chlamydia

How Chlamydia Guards Itself Against the Immune System

Natalia Mesa, PhD | Jan 2, 2023 | 4 min read

The bacterium produces a particular protein that allows it to sneak past the human immune system even while triggering inflammation.

<em>Chlamydia</em> invades a host cell, forms a membrane-bound vacuole, or inclusion, and then modifies the protein composition of the structure’s membrane. If immune cells detect <em>Chlamydia</em> before it forms the inclusion, they trigger T cells to produce interferon-γ (IFN-γ), a powerful cytokine. IFN-γ activates the protein mysterin (also called RFN213), which attaches ubiquitin to the inclusion membrane, signaling the cell to destroy the inclusion’s contents by dumping them into a lysosome (left). C. trachomatis produces GarD, a protein that integrates into the inclusion membrane itself and somehow prevents mysterin from attaching ubiquitin, allowing the bacterium to evade immune destruction while continuing to multiply and eventually bursting from the cell (right).

Infographic: How Chlamydia Evades Immune Detection

Natalia Mesa, PhD | Jan 2, 2023 | 2 min read

Chlamydia trachomatis, the bacterium that causes chlamydia, hides from the immune system by cloaking itself in the host cell’s membrane then modifying the membrane’s protein composition.

Cross section of an organic cell with intracellular organelles

How Intracellular Bacteria Hijack Your Cells

Catherine Offord | Dec 1, 2022 | 10+ min read

Scientists studying pathogens such as Chlamydia, Legionella, and Listeria get a master class in how to control the internal workings of mammalian cells.

Julius Schachter, Renowned Chlamydia Researcher, Dies at 84

Max Kozlov | Jan 12, 2021 | 2 min read

The UCSF microbiologist pioneered investigations into the deadly disease starting in the late 1960s that have led to the near eradication of trachoma, a chlamydia-related eye infection.