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Journal of Bacteriology, October 2001, p. 5997-6008, Vol. 183, No. 20
0021-9193/01/$04.00+0   DOI: 10.1128/JB.183.20.5997-6008.2001
Copyright © 2001, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.

Recombination in the ompA Gene but Not the omcB Gene of Chlamydia Contributes to Serovar-Specific Differences in Tissue Tropism, Immune Surveillance, and Persistence of the Organism

Kim L. Millman,1,4 Simon Tavaré,1,3 and Deborah Dean2,4,*

Department of Preventive Medicine, University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine,1 and Departments of Biological Sciences and Mathematics, University of Southern California,3 Los Angeles, Department of Medicine, University of California at San Francisco School of Medicine, San Francisco,2 and Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute, Oakland,4 California

Received 15 March 2001/Accepted 10 July 2001

Sequences of the major outer membrane protein (MOMP) gene (ompA) and the outer membrane complex B protein gene (omcB) from Chlamydia trachomatis, Chlamydia pneumoniae, and Chlamydia psittaci were analyzed for evidence of intragenic recombination and for linkage equilibrium. The Sawyer runs test, compatibility matrices, and index of association analyses provided substantial evidence that there has been a history of intragenic recombination at ompA including one instance of interspecies recombination between the C. trachomatis mouse pneumonitis strain and the C. pneumoniae horse N16 strain. Although none of these methods detected intragenic recombination within omcB, differences in divergence reported in earlier studies suggested that there has been intergenic recombination involving omcB, and the analyses presented in this study are consistent with this. For C. trachomatis, index-of-association analyses suggested a higher degree of recombination for C class than for B class strains and a higher degree of recombination in the downstream half of ompA. In concordance with these findings, many significant breakpoints were found in variable segments 3 and 4 of MOMP for the recombinant strains D/B120, G/UW-57, E/Bour, and LGV-98 identified in this study. We provide examples of how genetic diversity generated by repeated recombination in these regions may be associated with evasion of immune surveillance, serovar-specific differences in tissue tropism, and persistence.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute, 5700 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Oakland, CA 94609. Phone: (510) 450-7655. Fax: (510) 450-7910. E-mail: ddean{at}chori.org.

Journal of Bacteriology, October 2001, p. 5997-6008, Vol. 183, No. 20
0021-9193/01/$04.00+0   DOI: 10.1128/JB.183.20.5997-6008.2001
Copyright © 2001, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.


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