Chlamydia can colonize and settle in the intestine

People with chlamydia can spread these bacteria to others during unprotected sex. Viruses usually cause only mild symptoms or signs at first, such as itching of the vagina, vagina, or anus. If an infection is found, it can be treated with antibiotics. If this does not happen, the bacteria can cause serious problems, such as infertility and cancer.

In daily medical work, we know a phenomenon that can occur after successful antibiotic treatment: when people who have already received treatment go to the doctor with a new chlamydia infection, they are often infected with strains of bacteria that have already infected. This is known as persistence and is a problem because chlamydia in the body becomes more resistant to antibiotics over time.

Experiments conducted with mice have shown that chlamydia can survive in the intestines of animals. In humans, bacteria seem to find their home precisely in that place. Researchers identified the intestine as a niche with the help of miniature artificial organs, so-called organoids, structures created in the laboratory from human intestinal cells that are very similar in structure and function to style model.

Scientists try to infect intestinal organs with chlamydia. They found that the inner cellular layer of organoids is very resistant to bacteria: pathogens can enter there only if the cellular epithelium is damaged. However, from the blood side, chlamydia can infect effectively. If this is transferred to the human body, chlamydia infection, with the persistence of its consequences, can occur with difficulty only through the intestine, but very easily through the blood. However, it has not been confirmed in clinical studies whether this actually occurs in the human body.

The next step is to determine if chlamydia selects certain types of cells for its persistence, not an easy task, because the intestine is composed of hundreds of cell types. But perhaps there are also factors in the local resources that cause persistence. These and other details will now be investigated.

This article is in the magazine PLoS Pathogen.