Chlamydia

Chlamydia trachomatis is a bacterium which causes Chlamydia infection, a common STD in France.

Features of Chlamydia trachomatis

Chlamydia trachomatisis a small Gram negative bacterium (300 nanometres). It is an obligatory intracellular parasite that can therefore only survive in a human host cell. It has a specific reproductive cycle : alternating between an elemental form (infectious) and reticulated form (replicative).

Its small genome is carried on a circular chromosome of a million base pairs, coding for 800 proteins.

Chlamydia trachomatis and human diseases

The fifteen serotypes of Chlamydia trachomatis only infect human beings.

Chlamydia specifically infects the genital and ocular mucosa. Chlamydia (or Chlamydia infection) causes urethritis, or cervicitis, and is the most frequentsexually transmitted infection in France. It is contracted during sexual intercourse (oral, genital, or anal), and at childbirth between mother and child.

It also causes trachoma, a keratoconjunctivitis which is transmitted to the eyes from hands or from flies landing on infants eyes in highly infected countries.