Chlamydia suis is a member of the genus Chlamydia

Chlamydophila

Chlamydophila is a bacterial genus belonging to the family Chlamydiaceae, order Chlamydiales, class/phylum Chlamydiae.-Taxonomy:Chlamydophila was recognized in 1999, with six species in Chlamydophila and three in the original genus, Chlamydia...

. C. suis has only been isolated from swine, in which it may be endemic

Endemic (epidemiology)

In epidemiology, an infection is said to be endemic in a population when that infection is maintained in the population without the need for external inputs. For example, chickenpox is endemic in the UK, but malaria is not...

. Glycogen

Glycogen

Glycogen is a molecule that serves as the secondary long-term energy storage in animal and fungal cells, with the primary energy stores being held in adipose tissue...

 has been detected in Chlamydia suis inclusions in infected swine tissues and in cell culture. C. suis is associated with conjunctivitis

Conjunctivitis

Conjunctivitis refers to inflammation of the conjunctiva...

, enteritis

Enteritis

In medicine, enteritis, from Greek words enteron and suffix -itis , refers to inflammation of the small intestine. It is most commonly caused by the ingestion of substances contaminated with pathogenic microorganisms. Symptoms include abdominal pain, cramping, diarrhea, dehydration and fever...

 and pneumonia

Pneumonia

Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung—especially affecting the microscopic air sacs —associated with fever, chest symptoms, and a lack of air space on a chest X-ray. Pneumonia is typically caused by an infection but there are a number of other causes...

 in swine (Rogers & Andersen, 1996; Rogers et al., 1996).

Some strains have enhanced resistance to sulfadiazine

Sulfadiazine

Sulfadiazine is a sulfonamide antibiotic.-Uses:It eliminates bacteria that cause infections by stopping the production of folic acid inside the bacterial cell, and is commonly used to treat urinary tract infections ....

 and tetracycline (Andersen & Rogers, 1998; Rockey et al., 2004). Several strains of C. suis are known to have an extrachromosomal plasmid

Plasmid

In microbiology and genetics, a plasmid is a DNA molecule that is separate from, and can replicate independently of, the chromosomal DNA. They are double-stranded and, in many cases, circular...

, pCS. C. suis strains are somewhat more diverse than are other chlamydial species. The deduced ompA gene products of various Chlamydia suis strains contain vs4 epitope

Epitope

An epitope, also known as antigenic determinant, is the part of an antigen that is recognized by the immune system, specifically by antibodies, B cells, or T cells. The part of an antibody that recognizes the epitope is called a paratope...

s TLNPTIAG(A.K.T)G(D.K.N.T), TWNPTIAGAGS or TLNPTISGKGQ. These epitopes are identical or nearly identical to the Chlamydia MOMP core epitopes NPTI, TLNPTI, LNPTIA or LNPTI, which are recognized by Chlamydia trachomatis

Chlamydia trachomatis

Chlamydia trachomatis, an obligate intracellular human pathogen, is one of three bacterial species in the genus Chlamydia. C. trachomatis is a Gram-negative bacteria, therefore its cell wall components retain the counter-stain safranin and appear pink under a light microscope.The inclusion bodies...

vs4 mAbs. They are also identical or nearly identical to TIAGAGD and IAGAG epitopes, which are recognized by C. trachomatis B-serogroup mAbs (Batteiger et al., 1996).

External links

• Chlamydia suis at www.chlamydiae.com