 Perhaps the most comprehensive, multi-institutional study yet of the sexually transmitted bacteria chlamydia is under way at the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB).
A new $12.2 million grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health, will allow a team of scientists to perform molecular genomics analyses of the disease-causing powers of the bacterium Chlamydia trachomatis on a scale never attempted before, according to NIH officials.
The team will apply precise genome mapping of changes that happen to the bacteria as they interact within their natural environment with other microbes in the body. The multidisciplinary expertise of the team brings a unique approach to the study, and it is anticipated that the results will greatly advance scientific understanding of chlamydia, a major cause of infertility in women.
Microbiologist Patrik Bavoil, PhD, professor at the Dental School at UMB, who has expertise in the virulence of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), and researcher Jacques Ravel, PhD, associate professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine's Institute for Genome Sciences, an expert in microbial genomics, will lead the five-year project.
The scientific team includes experts in clinical human STD studies and others in biostatistical and bioinformatics data analysis. The multidisciplinary team will use state-of-the art genomic technologies to characterize the relationship between chlamydial infections and the vaginal microbiome, as well as to investigate genomic diversity for this highly relevant public health issue.
In recent years, chlamydia passed gonorrhea as the leading sexually transmitted bacterial pathogen in the U.S. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were 1,030,911 chlamydial infections reported in 2006, and it is believed to be greatly under-reported.
"We have assembled a multidisciplinary team that integrates ecological, genomics, clinical, and molecular analyses to study chlamydial infections," says Ravel. "As a team, we have the expertise and breadth to use a combination of newly developed bioinformatics and genomic tools to better understand the molecular mechanisms, which drive both chlamydial infections and the host microbiota in the reproductive tract."
"The bacteria in the microbiota serve as a first line of defense against infection," he adds. "We will develop a better understanding of how chlamydia can establish an infection in spite of that protection."
The study will involve swab samples collected from hundreds of infected women and men under the direction of Ligia Peralta, MD, associate professor of pediatrics and chief of the School of Medicine's Division of Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine at UMB. The researchers also will look for elements in the microbiota, the natural collection of microorganisms in healthy individuals, which may provide some disease protection for some women.
Bavoil will characterize the different types of chlamydia in the study to help the team learn how to find, trace, and diagnose the bacteria better, and eventually develop a vaccine."Basically, you have to know the enemy before you can fight it," he says.
The $12.2 million grant also covers four other laboratories supporting the core work at UMB with guinea pig studies, mathematical modeling and the emergence of antibiotic resistance in chlamydia, to understand the link between chlamydia and other STDs, as well as health outcomes, such as pelvic inflammatory disease. The other laboratories involved are led by Dr. Tony Maurelli, the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences in Rockville, Md.; Dr. David Wilson, the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia; the University of Arkansas; and Dr. Larry Forney, the University of Idaho in Moscow, Idaho. |
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