New work from the lab of Tony Maurelli, associate chair of the department of environmental and global health in UF's College of Public Health and Health Professions, has solved a quirky mystery about parasitic bacteria that cause the sexually-transmitted disease known as Chlamydia.
UF researchers have resolved a two-decade old mystery centered upon how the bacteria Chlamydia divide and reproduce. Newly published results from the lab of Anthony Maurelli, a microbiologist in UF’s College of Public Health and Health Professions and the EPI, reveal that how these parasitic pathogens replicate diverges from a nearly universal norm.
New research from the EPI and UF’s College of Public Health & Health Professions found that exposing the sexually-transmitted bacterial pathogen Chlamydia to fosmidomycin — an antibiotic which is usually lethal to bacteria — causes Chlamydia to enter a protective bunker-like “persistent” state. The findings could bolster future efforts to intentionally disrupt the molecular changes that induce chlamydial persistence, leading to the prevention of chronic chlamydial infections.
A research team led by a leading UF-EPI scientist has solved a long-standing mystery related to the most common sexually transmitted infection in the United States.
