PLOS Science Wednesday: Hi Reddit, we’re John and Yasser, and we found an unexpected mechanism of cell division in Chlamydia trachomatis unique to this human bacterial pathogen, creating implications for developing Chlamydia-specific therapies – Ask Us Anything!

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Hi Reddit,

I’m John Cox, a faculty member in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Biochemistry at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center. And I am Yasser Abdelrahman a Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Restorative Dentistry at Oregon Health and Sciences University.

We have been interested in the molecular mechanisms that regulate the growth of Chlamydia trachomatis, an obligate intracellular pathogen that is the leading bacterial cause of sexually transmitted infections. The ultimate goal of these studies is to develop therapies to specifically prevent chlamydial growth. We recently published a manuscript, “Polarized Cell Division of Chlamydia trachomatis” in PLOS Pathogens. Although it was assumed that this organism divides by binary fission, we showed in this manuscript that Chlamydia trachomatis divides by a polarized cell division process that is similar to the budding process of a subset of the Planctomycetes. This mechanism of cell division has not been documented in other human bacterial pathogens suggesting the potential for developing Chlamydia-specific therapeutic treatments.

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">PLOS Science Wednesday: Hi Reddit, we’re John and Yasser, and we found an unexpected mechanism of cell division in Chlamydia trachomatis unique to this human bacterial pathogen, creating implications for developing Chlamydia-specific therapies – Ask Us Anything!