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Pathogenic outcome following experimental infection of sheep with Chlamydia abortus variant strains LLG and POS

Livingstone, Morag; Wheelhouse, Nicholas; Ensor, Hannah; Rocchi, Mara; Maley, Stephen; Aitchison, Kevin; Wattegedera, Sean; Wilson, Kim; Sait, Michelle; Siarkou, Victoria; Vretou, Evangelia; Entrican, Gary; Dagleish, Mark; Longbottom, David

Authors

Morag Livingstone

Hannah Ensor

Mara Rocchi

Stephen Maley

Kevin Aitchison

Sean Wattegedera

Kim Wilson

Michelle Sait

Victoria Siarkou

Evangelia Vretou

Gary Entrican

Mark Dagleish

David Longbottom



Contributors

Lloyd Vaughan
Editor

Abstract

This study investigated the pathogenesis of two variant strains (LLG and POS) of Chlamydia abortus, in comparison to a typical wild-type strain (S26/3) which is known to be responsible for late term abortion in small ruminants. Challenge with the three strains at mid-gestation resulted in similar pregnancy outcomes, with abortion occurring in approximately 50±60% of ewes with the mean gestational lengths also being similar. However, differences were observed in the severity of placental pathology, with infection appearing milder for strain LLG, which was reflected in the lower number of organisms shed in vaginal swabs post-partum and less gross pathology and organisms present in placental smears. Results for strain POS were somewhat different than LLG with a more focal restriction of infection observed. Post-abortion antibody responses revealed prominent differences in seropositivity to the major outer membrane protein (MOMP) present in elementary body (EB) preparations under denaturing conditions, most notably with anti-LLG and anti-POS convalescent sera where there was no or reduced detection of MOMP present in EBs derived from the three strains. These results and additional analysis of whole EB and chlamydial outer membrane complex preparations suggest that there are conformational differences in MOMP for the three strains. Overall, the results suggest that gross placental pathology and clinical outcome is not indicative of bacterial colonization and the severity of infection. The results also highlight potential conformational differences in MOMP epitopes that perhaps impact on disease diagnosis and the development of new vaccines.

Citation

Livingstone, M., Wheelhouse, N., Ensor, H., Rocchi, M., Maley, S., Aitchison, K., Wattegedera, S., Wilson, K., Sait, M., Siarkou, V., Vretou, E., Entrican, G., Dagleish, M., & Longbottom, D. (2017). Pathogenic outcome following experimental infection of sheep with Chlamydia abortus variant strains LLG and POS. PLOS ONE, 12(5), Article e0177653. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0177653

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date May 4, 2017
Online Publication Date May 11, 2017
Publication Date May 11, 2017
Deposit Date May 5, 2017
Publicly Available Date May 17, 2017
Journal PLoS One
Print ISSN 1932-6203
Publisher Public Library of Science
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 12
Issue 5
Article Number e0177653
DOI https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0177653
Keywords Placenta, Ovine abortion, Chlamydia infection, sheep, Chlamydia, Cotyledons (anatomy), Antibody response, immunohistochemistry technics
Public URL http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/839292
Contract Date May 17, 2017

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Pathogenic outcome following experimental infection of sheep with Chlamydia abortus variant strains LLG and POS (19.3 Mb)
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Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Copyright Statement
© 2017 Livingstone et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.









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