’Lab in a cell’ helps team crack code on chlamydia
Scientists in the U.K. and B.C. have created a “lab in a cell” to study one of the world’s most widespread sexually transmitted diseases.
Using a gene-editing tool called CRISPR/Cas9, the researchers are able to alter the properties of white blood cells to see how chlamydia bacteria are able to penetrate cells, according to microbiologist Robert Hancock of the University of B.C.
The process has already revealed new drug targets and identified key genes involved in fighting chlamydia infection, described in the journal Nature Communications.
More than 130 million people are infected each year worldwide and 100,000 cases are reported in Canada, but the real number may be much higher.
Chlamydia is called “the silent disease” because in many individuals symptoms are mild to unnoticeable; the disease often has weeks or months to do its damage.
In men, chlamydia can lead to painful discharge and, in some cases, infertility. In women it can lead to pelvic inflammatory disease, a painful often permanent condition.
PID is also a common cause of infertility in women.
The researchers at UBC and the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in the U.K. were able to overcome a significant scientific hurdle.
“The form of chlamydia that causes problems in people will only grow in people, so there are very limited options for researchers to investigate new treatments,” he said.
Because the human strain won’t thrive in mice they require a “mouse-adapted” strain of the bacteria, “but it’s not really the same disease.”
Instead, the researchers used human stem cells to create white blood cells called macrophages that respond to the bacteria just like cells in the body.