The role of chlamydial colonization of the gastrointestinal tract in the development and maintenance of chronic chlamydial infections

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Diseases, caused by C. trachomatis, have an adverse impact on the health and reproductive function in women and men, leading the cause of infertility. Despite the fact that C. trachomatis is a sexually transmitted pathogen, adapted to the epithelial cells of the urogenital tract (UGT), it has a fairly wide tropism and can infect blood cells, epithelium of conjunctiva, synovial cells, hepatocytes, enteroendocrine cells and be detected in different gastrointestinal tract (GIT) in men and women. Data on infections in mice showed, that chlamydia can spread lympogenously/hematogenously in the body, colonize the intestine, persist in these organs for a long time without causing a significant pathology, but inducing chronic pathological inflammation in reproductive organs. In model C. muridarum shows the role of the conservative chlamydial protein Pgp3, encoded by the plasmid sequence, to establish colonization of the digestive tract. Accumulate experimental and clinical evidence, that intestine was favourable niche for persistence of chlamydia, where intracellular pathogen can avoid the competitive impact of the intestinal microflora, and due to immune homeostasis on the intestinal mucosa, the immune response is characterized by poor protection. It is likely, that the generalized urogenital chlamydial infection and colonization by chlamydia of digestive tract are the main causes for chronicity of infection and the development of pathology in the reproductive sphere, as well as in other organs. Proof of the role of this mechanism in formation of chronic infections will require new approaches to the diagnosis and treatment of chlamydiosis. These new data and is the subject of this review.

Keywords:

C trachomatis

chronic chlamydiosis

organs of the gastrointestinal tract (GIT)

generalization of infection

C trachomatis

chronic chlamydiosis

organs of the gastrointestinal tract (GIT)

generalization of infection

infectious process

pathology

generalization of infection

infectious process

pathology

review

infectious process

review

pathology

review

Authors:

Bondareva N.E.

Gamaleya Federal Research Centre for Epidemiology and Microbiology, Moscow, Russia

Koroleva E.A.

Gamaleya Federal Research Centre for Epidemiology and Microbiology, Moscow, Russia

Zigangirova N.A.

Gamaleya Federal Research Centre for Epidemiology and Microbiology, Moscow, Russia

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