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STUDIES ON NEISSERIA GONORRHOEAE STRAINS FROM TEST‐OF‐CURE SPECIMENS
Author(s) -
ØDUM LARS,
LIND INGA
Publication year - 1982
Publication title -
acta pathologica microbiologica scandinavica series b: microbiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.909
H-Index - 88
eISSN - 1600-0463
pISSN - 0108-0180
DOI - 10.1111/j.1699-0463.1982.tb00097.x
Subject(s) - neisseria gonorrhoeae , penicillin , microbiology and biotechnology , neisseria , biology , strain (injury) , pilus , antibiotics , bacteria , escherichia coli , biochemistry , gene , genetics , anatomy
Sixty‐seven out of 88 Neisseria gonorrhoeae strains isolated from test‐of‐cure (TOC) specimens during a five‐months period were included in the study. For 62 patients sufficient information was obtained in order to distinguish between relapse (34 ptt) and re‐infection (28 ptt). For comparison with strains from these two groups of patients, 63 urogenital and 21 pharyngeal gonococcal strains isolated during the same period of time were randomly selected and tested. The distributions according to susceptibility to penicillin for TOC strains and control strains corresponded to those found for the total number of TOC strains (275) and other strains (3,345) tested in 1979, respectively. The TOC strains did not differ from the control strains in sensitivity to the complement‐dependent bactericidal activity of normal human serum. However, gonococcal strains less susceptible to penicillin in vitro (MIC values within the range 0.1–2.0 μg/ml) were significantly more sensitive to the complement‐dependent activity of normal human serum (P <0.01) than strains fully susceptible to penicillin (MIC <0.01 μg/ml.) Penicillin‐resistant strains (MIC >2.0 μg/ml) did not differ from strains susceptible to <0.1 μg penicillin/ml and were slightly more serum‐resistant than the less susceptible strains (P <0.05). No difference in serum‐sensitivity of urogenital and pharyngeal isolates could be demonstrated. The level of bactericidal activity of homologous convalescent serum was unrelated to the presence of antibodies either to gonococcal pili or crude gonococcal antigen preparations. The sensitivity to normal human serum of a certain strain was not correlated with sensitivity to homologous convalescent serum.