MOLECULAR-BIOLOGY OF THE CHLAMYDIA-PNEUMONIAE SURFACE

Chlamydia pneumoniae is a fastidious microorganism with a characterist ic biphasic lifecycle causing a variety of human respiratory tract inf ections. There is limited knowledge about the molecular biology of C. pneumoniae, and only a few genes have been sequenced. The structure of the chlamydial surface differs from that of Chlamydia trachomatis. In order to study the surface of C. pneumoniae we generated monoclonal a ntibodies (MAbs) against C. pneumoniae strain VR-1310 and selected 14 MAbs that reacted with the surface of C. pneumoniae. All MAbs reacted in immunoelectron microscopy with the surface of both whole C. pneumon iae VR-1310 elementary bodies and with purified sarcosyl extracted out er membrane complexes. However, only 2 of the MAbs reacted in immunobl otting with C. pneumoniae proteins and only with antigen that had not been heat treated in SDS-sample buffer. This indicates the dominance o f conformational epitopes at the C. pneumoniae surface.