Chlamydia trachomatis

All unapproved Citizendium articles may contain errors of fact, bias, grammar etc. A version of an article is unapproved unless it is marked as citable with a dedicated green template at the top of the page, as in this version of the 'Biology' article. Citable articles are intended to be of reasonably high quality. The participants in the Citizendium project make no representations about the reliability of Citizendium articles or, generally, their suitability for any purpose. This article is currently being developed as part of an Eduzendium student project in the framework of a course entitled Microbiology 201 at Queens College, CUNY. The course homepage can be found at CZ:Biol 201: General Microbiology. For the course duration, the article is closed to outside editing. Of course you can always leave comments on the discussion page. The anticipated date of course completion is May 21, 2009. One month after that date at the latest, this notice shall be removed. Besides, many other Citizendium articles welcome your collaboration!

Scientific classification

Description and significance

Chlamydia trachomatis is a pathogen that causes many serious health threats to humans. Chlamydia is one of the most common STD which is caused by chlamydia trachomatis. An estimated 4 million C. trachomatis infections occur annually among the sexually active population in the United States. The majority of persons with C. trachomatis infection are not aware of their infection because they do not have symptoms. The infection is easily cured if diagnosed, but many infections remain untreated and lead to other illnesses such as infertility in both men and women. Another disease caused by C. trachomatis is trachoma, most common cause of blindness among children in Africa and other developing nations.

Genome structure

The genome of Chlamydia trachomatis contains 1,042,519 base pairs of DNA encoding 938 genes.

Cell structure and metabolism

Chlamydia trachomatis is structurally gram negative and is one of three bacterial species in the genus Chlamydia. It was once thought to be a virus because it could have not been cultured in an artificial medium. C. trachomatis is an obligate intracellular pathogen that lives within human cells and cannot make its own ATP.