The Chlamydia Trachomatis Parasitophorous Vacuolar Membrane is Not Passively Permeable to Low-molecular-weight Compounds

Overview

Journal Infect Immun

Publisher American Society for Microbiology

Specialty Allergy & Immunology

Date 1997 Mar 1

PMID 9038320

Citations 43

Authors

R A Heinzen

T Hackstadt

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Chlamydia trachomatis is an obligately intracellular bacterial parasite of eucaryotic cells that undergoes a biphasic life cycle within a parasitophorous vacuole (PV) called an inclusion. The parasitophorous vacuolar membrane (PVM) constitutes a barrier between the replicating bacteria and the nutrient-rich environment of the host cytoplasm. To determine whether the chlamydial PVM contains pores that allow passive diffusion of metabolites between the host cytoplasm and the PV, fluorescent tracer molecules were introduced directly into the cytoplasm of infected cells by transfection or microinjection. Fluorescence microscopy and laser scanning confocal microscopy were subsequently employed to determine whether equilibration of the fluorescent tracers between the cytoplasm and the PV occurred. No movement of tracer molecules as small as 520 Da from the cytoplasm to the PV was observed. These data suggest that the chlamydial PV is not passively permeable to small molecules through open channels in the PVM.

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