Chlamydia 26infectious spill into the female peritoneal cavity. The disease can result in scarring and pelvic organ disfigurement that lead to increases in ectopic pregnancy rates, tubal factor infertility (Hellstrom, Schachter et al. 1987) and possibly early pregnancy wastage (Witkin 1999). If left untreated during pregnancy, chlamydial genital infections in women have been associated with preterm delivery (Rours, Duijts et al. 2011).
Developmental cycle of Chlamydia trachomatisChlamydia exhibits a predominantly biphasic developmental cycle, differentiating between a metabolically inactive but infectious elementary body (EB) and a replicating and metabolically active, but non-infectious, reticulate body (RB) (Nelson, Virok et al. 2005;Linhares and Witkin 2010). Attachment and entry of EBs into permissive cells are critical steps in chlamydial development, but the molecules and mechanisms utilized in these processes are not well understood. Several bacterial ligands have been implicated as adhesins, and include heparin sulfate-like proteins, MOMP, OmcB, glycoproteins and Hsp70 (reviewed by Hackstadt 1999). The host factor/s involved in attachment is/are likely proteinacious, and the host cytoplasmic chaperone protein disulfide isomerase (PDI) has been strongly implicated as a structural requirement for attachment of multiple serovars, as well as necessary for entry (Davis, Raulston et al. 2002;Conant and Stephens 2007;Abromaitis and Stephens 2009). After EB internalization, Chlamydia-derived vesicles mature into a specialized parasitophorous vacuole termed an inclusion, which is nonfusogenic with lysosomal and endosomal membranes (Fields, Fischer et al. 2002;Carabeo, Mead et al. 2003;Hybiske and Stephens 2007a;Hybiske and Stephens 2007b). The exact mechanisms involved in the differentiation of the chlamydial EB into a RB remain incompletely described, but morphological investigations have demonstrated decondensation of chromatin occurs early in the process and supports the transition from a metabolically inert EB to a metabolically active RB (Beatty, Byrne, et al. 1993;Beatty, Morrison, et al. 1995;Belland, Zhong et al. 2003) Elegant investigations using transcriptional profiling have listed chaperonin, metabolite translocation, metabolite interconversion, endosomal trafficking, and inclusion membrane modification genes to be among the first to be activated (immediate early genes) during this transition (Belland, Zhong, et al. 2003;AbdelRahman and Belland 2005). As might have been predicted, these genes fall into categories required for pathogen acquisition of nutrients and for inhibiting fusion of the chlamydial inclusion with the host cell lysosomal pathway. Inside the inclusion, the elementary bodies differentiate into reticulate bodies that, in turn, divide rapidly via binary fission. RB condense back into EB and completion of the chlamydial cell cycle results in EB release by host cell lysis or extrusion (Todd and Caldwell 1985; ;Hybiske and Stephens 2007b). Secondary differentiation of RB back into EB invo...