# Chlamydia trachomatis Secreted Effector Proteins: Infection Properties and Identification of Host Targets

> **NIH NIH F31** · UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY · 2020 · $33,824

## Abstract

Project Summary
 Chlamydia trachomatis is the causative agent of most commonly reported sexually transmitted disease
in the United States. Disease is most severe in women and can cause detrimental effects to reproductive health,
such as infertility. Establishment of an intracellular niche within non-immune cells, such as mucosal epithelium,
is sufficient to drive immunopathology and disease sequela. C. trachomatis lacking both TmeA and TmeB, type
III secretion system effectors, generate fewer infectious progeny in tissue culture and have significantly
decreased infectivity in mice. Previous attempts to identify their individual functions utilized fluorescence-
reported allelic exchange mutagenesis (FRAEM), but resulted in unclear phenotypes due to cassette-induced
polar effects. Recently, I have developed floxed-cassette allelic exchange mutagenesis (FLAEM), to reverse
cassette-induced polar effects and generate the first ever markerless C. trachomatis deletion mutant. I
hypothesize that TmeA and TmeB are functionally related and important for establishing the inclusion, because
they are co-transcribed, share a common chaperone, and are secreted into the host cell at the same time. The
proposed work will utilize the novel marker-less C. trachomatis deletion mutant to determine when
during chlamydial development TmeA and TmeB are important, and identify their eukaryotic host cell
targets. The outcomes of this research will directly contribute to our understanding of basic C. trachomatis
biology and how they use secreted effectors to establish an intracellular, which will identify potential drug targets
to prevent the spread of infection to millions world-wide.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9995372
- **Project number:** 5F31AI147417-02
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY
- **Principal Investigator:** Gabrielle Keb
- **Activity code:** F31 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $33,824
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2019-08-09 → 2022-08-08

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9995372

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9995372, Chlamydia trachomatis Secreted Effector Proteins: Infection Properties and Identification of Host Targets (5F31AI147417-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9995372. Licensed CC0.

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