1887

Abstract

The resistance of gonococci to complement-mediated killing by serum is important in the pathogenesis of gonorrhoea. Most urethal strains lose this resistance on subculture. The host product(s) which induces the resistance is therefore fundamental to pathogenesis. Human genital secretions and some sera induced gonococci to serum resistance Guinea pig serum was more active than human serum and low molecular weight fractions from it conferred resistance to gonococci in 3 h at 37 °C. Similar active fractions were obtained from human sera. Now guinea pig serum has been further fractionated for the low molecular weight inducer by membrane filtration, gel filtration on Sephadex G25, high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with a Spherisorb ODS reverse phase column, chromatography on Sephadex LH20 and HPLC with a Partisil SCX cation exchange column. The small yield (less than 1 mg from 400 ml serum) of highly active material was contaminated with breakdown products from the Partisil SCX column and a mixture of compounds. However, analysis indicated the presence of one or more small glucopeptides containing cysteine, glutamic acid, aspartic acid, threonine, serine, glycine, alanine, valine and lysine. Similar glucopeptides are liberated from fresh human red blood cells in slightly hypertonic saline and samples of them induced gonococci to serum resistance.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journal/micro/10.1099/00221287-130-11-2757
1984-11-01
2024-12-10
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

/deliver/fulltext/micro/130/11/mic-130-11-2757.html?itemId=/content/journal/micro/10.1099/00221287-130-11-2757&mimeType=html&fmt=ahah

References

  1. Brooks G. F., Gotschlich E. C., Holmes K. K., Sawyer W. D., Young F. E. 1978 Immunobiology of Neisseria gonorrhoeae Washington. DC: American Society for Microbiology;
    [Google Scholar]
  2. Goldner M., Penn C. W., Sanyal S. C., Veale D. R., Smith H. 1979; Phenotypically determined resistance of Neisseria gonorrhoeae to normal human serum: environmental factors in subcutaneous chambers in guinea pigs. Journal of General Microbiology 114:169–177
    [Google Scholar]
  3. Kennedy J. F., Fox J. E. 1980; Fully automatic ion-exchange chromatographic analysis of neutral monosaccharides and oligosaccharides. Methods in Carbohydrate Chemistry 8:3–12
    [Google Scholar]
  4. Martin P. M. V., Patel P. V., Parsons N. J., Smith H. 1981; Induction of phenotypically determined resistance of Neisseria gonorrhoeae to human serum by factors in human serum. Journal of General Microbiology 127:213–217
    [Google Scholar]
  5. Martin P. M. V., Patel P. V., Parsons N. J., Smith H. 1982; Induction in gonococci of phenotypic resistance to killing by human serum by human genital secretions. British Journal of Venereal Diseases 58:363–365
    [Google Scholar]
  6. Patel P. V., Martin P. M. V., Goldner M., Parsons N. J., Smith H. 1984; Red blood cells, a source of factors which induce Neisseria gonorrhoeae to resistance to complement-mediated killing by human sera. Journal of General Microbiology 130:2767–2770
    [Google Scholar]
  7. Penn C. W., Sen D., Veale D. R., Parsons N. J., Smith H., Witt K. 1976; Morphological, biological and antigenic properties of Neisseria gonorrhoeae adapted to growth in guinea pig subcutaneous chambers. Journal of General Microbiology 97:35–43
    [Google Scholar]
  8. Penn C. W., Veale D. R., Smith H. 1977; Selection from gonococci grown in vitro of a colony type with some virulence properties of organisms adapted in vivo. Journal of General Microbiology 100:147–158
    [Google Scholar]
  9. Rittenbero S. C., Penn C. W., Parsons N. J., Veale D. R., Smith H. 1977; Phenotypic changes in the resistance of Neisseria gonorrhoeae to killing by normal human serum. Journal of General Microbiology 103:69–75
    [Google Scholar]
  10. Schoolnik G. K., Buchanan T. M., Holmes K. K. 1976; Gonococci causing disseminated gonococcal infection are more resistant to the bactericidal action of normal human sera. Journal of Clinical Im.'estiga- tion 58:1163–1173
    [Google Scholar]
  11. Veale D. R., Smith H., Witt K., Marshall R. B. 1975; Differential ability of colonial types of Neisseria gonorrhoeae to produce infection and an inflammatory response in subcutaneous perforated plastic chambers in guinea pigs and rabbits. Journal of Medical Microbiology 8:325–335
    [Google Scholar]
  12. Veale D. R., Penn C. W., Parsons N. J., Smith H. 1980; Preliminary studies of a factor in guinea pig serum which induces serum resistance in Neisseria gonorrhoeae. Society for General Microbiology Quarterly 7:188
    [Google Scholar]
  13. Veale D. R., Penn C. W., Smith H. 1981; Factors affecting the induction of phenotypically determined serum resistance of Neisseria gonorrhoeae grown in media containing serum or its diffusible components. Journal of General Microbiology 122:235–245
    [Google Scholar]
  14. Ward M. E., Watt P. J., Glynn N. N. 1970; Gonococci in urethral exudates possess a virulence factor lost on subculture. London: Nature; 227382–384
    [Google Scholar]
  15. Weiss J. B., Lote C. J., Bobinski H. 1971; New low molecular weight glycopeptide containing triglucosylcysteine in human erythrocyte membrane. Nature New Biology 234:25–26
    [Google Scholar]
/content/journal/micro/10.1099/00221287-130-11-2757
Loading
/content/journal/micro/10.1099/00221287-130-11-2757
Loading

Data & Media loading...

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a Success
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error