title: Patients with Chlamydia-associated arthritis have ocular (trachoma), not genital, serovars of C. trachomatis in synovial tissue.
abstract: Some individuals with a genital Chlamydia trachomatis infection develop inflammatory arthritis, but it is unknown whether particular chlamydial serovar(s) engender the disease more often than others. We defined serovar in synovial tissues from arthritis patients infected with this organism. DNA from synovial biopsies of 36 patients with PCR-confirmed synovial C. trachomatis was analyzed. Diagnoses included reactive arthritis, undifferentiated oligoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, and osteoarthritis. The chlamydial omp1 and trpA genes were amplified, cloned, and 10 or more clones from each sample were sequenced. The cytotoxin locus also was analyzed. omp1 sequences showed 2 patients having only C. trachomatis A serovar, 1 with only B, and 33 having only C, all ocular serovars. Analyses of trpA and the cytotoxin locus uniformly displayed standard ocular serovar characteristics for each patient. Identification of ocular chlamydial serovars in the synovia of arthritis patients is unexpected. These observations suggest that urogenital chlamydial infections, while consisting primarily of organisms of genital serovars, include some of ocular serovar(s). They further suggest that during such infections unknown selection pressures favor establishment of the latter in the synovium to the exclusion of genital serovar chlamydiae.
authors.affiliation: Dept. Immunology and Microbiology, Wayne State University School of Medicine, Gordon H. Scott Hall, 540 East Canfield Ave., Detroit, MI 48201, USA.
authors.forename: Hervé C
authors.initials: HC
authors.lastname: Gerard
authors.forename: Jessica A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Stanich
authors.forename: Judith A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Whittum-Hudson
authors.forename: H Ralph
authors.initials: HR
authors.lastname: Schumacher
authors.forename: John D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Carter
authors.forename: Alan P
authors.initials: AP
authors.lastname: Hudson
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001170:Arthritis, Infectious / Q000382:microbiology*; D016918:Arthritis, Reactive / Q000382:microbiology; D001172:Arthritis, Rheumatoid / Q000382:microbiology; D001425:Bacterial Outer Membrane Proteins / Q000235:genetics; D001427:Bacterial Toxins / Q000235:genetics; D001483:Base Sequence; D002690:Chlamydia Infections / Q000382:microbiology*; D002692:Chlamydia trachomatis / Q000145:classification* / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification; D003603:Cytotoxins / Q000235:genetics; D004269:DNA, Bacterial / Q000235:genetics; D005260:Female; D052776:Female Urogenital Diseases / Q000382:microbiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D052801:Male Urogenital Diseases / Q000382:microbiology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010003:Osteoarthritis / Q000382:microbiology; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D012329:RNA, Bacterial / Q000235:genetics; D012703:Serotyping; D013583:Synovial Membrane / Q000382:microbiology*; D014141:Trachoma / Q000382:microbiology; D014367:Tryptophan Synthase / Q000235:genetics
chemical_list: D001425:Bacterial Outer Membrane Proteins; D001427:Bacterial Toxins; D003603:Cytotoxins; D004269:DNA, Bacterial; D012329:RNA, Bacterial; D014367:Tryptophan Synthase