C hlamydia species have been known to cause human disease since antiquity. Chlamydia trachomatis is the leading cause of preventable blindness (Trachoma) in developing nations and sexually transmitted diseases and noncongenital infertility in the Western world (1). Chlamydia psittaci causes illnesses in psatticine birds and occasionally humans by accident (Psittacosis). More recently, Chlamydia...

Chlamydiae replicate intracellularly in a vacuole called an inclusion. Chlamydial-infected host cells are protected from mitochondrion-dependent apoptosis, partly due to degradation of BH3-only proteins. The host-cell adapter protein 14-3-3beta can interact with host-cell apoptotic signaling pathways in a phosphorylation-dependent manner. In Chlamydia trachomatis-infected cells, 14-3-3beta co-l...

Analysis of the 1,042,519-base pair Chlamydia trachomatis genome revealed unexpected features related to the complex biology of chlamydiae. Although chlamydiae lack many biosynthetic capabilities, they retain functions for performing key steps and interconversions of metabolites obtained from their mammalian host cells. Numerous potential virulence-associated proteins also were characterized. S...

Eight chlamydial isolates of ovine origin were tested in a plaque reduction system using homologous and heterologous rooster antisera. The eight isolates could be separated into two separate immunotypes. Type 1 included isolates associated with ovine abortion and one agent recovered from the feces of an apparently normal sheep. Type 2 isolates were associated with polyarthritis and conjunctivit...

Using polystyrene microspheres coated with heparin or heparan sulfate, it was shown that coated microspheres specifically bound eukaryotic cells and were endocytosed by nonprofessional phagocytic cells. Coated microspheres displayed properties of binding to eukaryotic cells that were similar to those of chlamydiae, and the microspheres were competitively inhibited by chlamydial organisms. Endoc...

In recent years, the planctomycetes have been recognized as a phylum of environmentally important bacteria with habitats ranging from soil and freshwater to marine ecosystems. The planctomycetes form an independent phylum within the bacterial domain, whose exact phylogenetic position remains controversial. With the completion of sequencing of the genome of 'Rhodopirellula baltica' SH 1, it is n...

<p>Water treatment ecosystem provides important habitats for various bacterial communities, but the response mechanism of this under ultraviolet rays is not yet clear. For reason, 16S rRNA gene sequencing used to study community structure and metabolic pathways irradiation. Studies have shown that communities different irradiation are different, which indicates time has an impact on commu...