TY  - JOUR
N1  - Open Access: This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article?s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article?s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
AV  - public
Y1  - 2017/08/29/
VL  - 7
TI  - Genome-wide profiling of humoral immunity and pathogen genes under selection identifies immune evasion tactics of Chlamydia trachomatis during ocular infection
A1  - Pickering, H
A1  - Teng, A
A1  - Faal, N
A1  - Joof, H
A1  - Makalo, P
A1  - Cassama, E
A1  - Nabicassa, M
A1  - Last, AR
A1  - Burr, SE
A1  - Rowland-Jones, SL
A1  - Thomson, NR
A1  - Roberts, CH
A1  - Mabey, DCW
A1  - Bailey, RL
A1  - Hayward, RD
A1  - de la Maza, LM
A1  - Holland, MJ
JF  - Scientific Reports
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-09193-2
SN  - 2045-2322
N2  - The frequency and duration of Chlamydia trachomatis (Ct) ocular infections decrease with age, suggesting development of partial immunity. However, there is a lack of clear correlates of immunity to Ct infection in humans. We screened sera from a cohort of Gambian children followed for six-months against a Ct-proteome microarray. At genome sequence level, we detected signatures of selection from a population of ocular Ct isolates from Guinea-Bissau. Together these approaches allowed us to highlight the focus of humoral responses and hypothesise new modes of pathogen immune evasion. Children who were susceptible to frequent and/or prolonged Ct infection had a less focussed antibody response, including preferential recognition of forty-two antigens. There was evidence of positive and purifying selection across the genome, but little balancing selection. In contrast, most antigens that were associated with susceptibility were under neutral selection. These data suggest an evasion strategy in which Ct presents a large panel of irrelevant antigens to the immune system to block or misdirect protective responses. Development of a focused immune response, possibly induced through vaccination, may be an effective strategy to promote protection to Ct infection.
ID  - discovery1573326
ER  -