Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
Department of Biology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
Microb Genom. 2023 Jun;9(6). doi: 10.1099/mgen.0.001040.
The bacterium causes the sexually transmitted infection gonorrhoea. Although diverse clinical manifestations are associated with gonorrhoea, ranging from asymptomatic through to localized and disseminated infection, very little is known about the bacterial determinants implicated in causing such different clinical symptoms. In particular, virulence factors, although defined and investigated in particular strains, often lack comprehensive analysis of their genetic diversity and how this relates to particular disease states. This review examines the clinical manifestations of gonorrhoea and discusses them in relation to disease severity and association with expression of particular virulence factors including PorB, lipooligosaccharide (LOS) and Opa, both in terms of their mechanisms of action and inter- and intra-strain variation. Particular attention is paid to phase variation as a key mechanism of genetic variation in the gonococcus and the impact of this during infection. We describe how whole-genome-sequence-based approaches that focus on virulence factors can be employed for vaccine development and discuss whether whole-genome-sequence data can be used to predict the severity of gonococcal infection.
这种细菌会引起性传播感染淋病。尽管淋病的临床表现多种多样，从无症状到局部和全身感染都有，但人们对导致这种不同临床症状的细菌决定因素知之甚少。特别是毒力因子，尽管在特定菌株中已经定义和研究过，但往往缺乏对其遗传多样性的全面分析，以及这种多样性与特定疾病状态的关系。本文综述了淋病的临床表现，并讨论了它们与疾病严重程度的关系，以及与特定毒力因子表达的关系，包括 PorB、脂寡糖 (LOS) 和 Opa，既涉及它们的作用机制，也涉及菌株间和菌株内的变异。特别关注了相位变异作为淋球菌遗传变异的关键机制，以及它在感染过程中的影响。我们描述了如何利用基于全基因组测序的方法来关注毒力因子，以用于疫苗开发，并讨论是否可以使用全基因组序列数据来预测淋病感染的严重程度。
