# Characterizing the Redoxome of Chlamydia and Its Host Cell

> **NIH NIH R21** · UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA MEDICAL CENTER · 2024 · $190,125

## Abstract

Project Summary: Characterizing the Redoxome of Chlamydia and Its Host Cell
 Chlamydia is an obligate intracellular bacterial pathogen that causes a range of serious diseases in
humans. In developed countries, Chlamydia trachomatis is the primary cause of bacterial sexually transmitted
infections (STI). Indeed, recent reports from the Centers for Disease Control highlight the increasing incidence
of STIs, with chlamydia infections consistently outpacing all other types. In developing countries, C.
trachomatis is not only a significant cause of STI, but it is also responsible for the primary cause of infectious
preventable blindness, trachoma. The major concern of chlamydial infections is that they are often
asymptomatic and undiagnosed, which can lead to chronic sequelae. These include pelvic inflammatory
disease, tubal factor infertility, and reactive arthritis for C. trachomatis. Consequently, chlamydial diseases
remain a significant burden on health care systems around the world.
 In adapting to obligate intracellular growth, Chlamydia has significantly reduced its genome size and
eliminated genes from various pathways as it relies on the host cell for its metabolic needs. This pathogen
also alternates between different functional and morphological forms during its normal growth, also referred
to as its developmental cycle. These observations, combined with its obligate intracellular dependence, makes
Chlamydia a difficult organism with which to work. However, recent development of genetic tools to study
chlamydiae mechanistically have significantly enhanced our understanding of this pathogen. This proposal
applies a combination of these new genetic techniques and established mass spectrometry-based
approaches to evaluate proteins subjected to redox regulation in both the host and bacterium. The hypothesis
of the proposed work is that Chlamydia uses redox signaling to trigger secondary differentiation from the
replicative to the infectious form of the organism. The major goals of this two-year funding proposal are to
identify host and bacterial proteins subjected to redox regulation as a first step towards addressing our
hypothesis. Selected wild-type and mutant proteins will be evaluated for changes in their redox status both in
vitro and in cell culture. Results from this study will advance our understanding of this important pathogen and
lead to further work to characterize the function of identified redox-regulated proteins. This may, in turn, lead
to the design of novel therapeutic agents that are specific for Chlamydia. This will allow for minimal effects on
normal flora for patients receiving treatment for this highly prevalent disease.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10909320
- **Project number:** 5R21AI178150-02
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA MEDICAL CENTER
- **Principal Investigator:** Scot P Ouellette
- **Activity code:** R21 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $190,125
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2023-08-17 → 2025-12-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10909320

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10909320, Characterizing the Redoxome of Chlamydia and Its Host Cell (5R21AI178150-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10909320. Licensed CC0.

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