In a research breakthrough that paves the way for preventive vaccines as well as better diagnostic tests and treatments, scientists have sequenced the complete genome for Treponema pallidum, the bacterium that causes syphilis.
The project, funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), was a collaboration between scientists led by George M. Weinstock, Ph.D., and Steven J. Norris, Ph.D., at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston, and Claire M. Fraser, Ph.D., and colleagues at The Institute for Genomic Research in Rockville, Md. They report their findings in the July 17, 1998, issue of Science.
A serious, potentially fatal sexually transmitted disease, syphilis once caused widespread epidemics and is still a major cause of illness and death around the world. People with syphilis lesions also are at higher risk for HIV infection. Although reported syphilis cases in the United States are at an all-time low, outbreaks still occur especially in inner cities and the rural South. Syphilis can be treated with injections of penicillin or other antibiotics - but the early symptoms can be mild or absent, so that many people do not seek treatment when they first become infected.
The new genetic map of T. pallidum should make it easier for scientists to fill some remaining gaps in detection, treatment and prevention. A major problem for researchers has been the inability to grow the organism in the laboratory. The genetic map identifies genes that are present or absent in the bacterium's metabolic pathways. "This critical information will allow us to develop better drugs, a continuous laboratory culture system and a specific diagnostic test," says Penelope J. Hitchcock, D.V.M., chief of the sexually transmitted diseases branch at NIAID.
Adds NIAID Director Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., "Completion of this project is an extraordinary boost for efforts to develop a protective vaccine."
Syphilis is difficult to
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Contact: June R. Wyman
jwyman@nih.gov
301-402-1663
NIH/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
16-Jul-1998