Open AccessInnate immunity is sufficient for the clearance of C hlamydia trachomatis from the female mouse genital tract
Author(s) -
Sturdevant Gail L.,
Caldwell Harlan D.
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
pathogens and disease
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.983
H-Index - 105
ISSN - 2049-632X
DOI - 10.1111/2049-632x.12164
Subject(s) - innate immune system , chlamydia trachomatis , biology , immunity , immune system , acquired immune system , immunology , chlamydia , clearance , recombination activating gene , virology , sex organ , gene , medicine , genetics , recombination , urology
Chlamydia muridarum and Chlamydia trachomatis , mouse and human strains, respectively, have been used to study immunity in a murine model of female genital tract infection. Despite evidence that unique genes of these otherwise genomically similar strains could play a role in innate immune evasion in their respective mouse and human hosts, there have been no animal model findings to directly support this conclusion. Here, we infected C57BL/6 and adaptive immune‐deficient Rag1 −/− female mice with these strains and evaluated their ability to spontaneously resolve genital infection. Predictably, C57BL/6 mice spontaneously cleared infection caused by both chlamydial strains. In contrast, Rag1 −/− mice which lack mature T and B cell immunity but maintain functional innate immune effectors were incapable of resolving C . muridarum infection but spontaneously cleared C. trachomatis infection. This distinct dichotomy in adaptive and innate immune‐mediated clearance between mouse and human strains has important cautionary implications for the study of natural immunity and vaccine development in the mouse model.