Browsing by Subject "makrofagi"

Chlamydia pneumoniae is an intracellular human pathogen that causes respiratory infections such as pneumonia. Antibodies have been found in serological samples worldwide and most likely every person gets an infection at least once in lifetime. In particular, persistent C.pneumoniae-infection has been associated with multiple chronic diseases such as atherosclerosis, asthma and neurological diseases. C.pneumoniae has a unique two-stage life cycle with two morphological forms; elementary body and reticulate body. In addition, the bacterium has a chronic persistent form. Persistent infection is very typical. Persistent infection can be produced in many ways in vitro, but it has been also found that C.pneumoniae is spontaneously transformed into persistent form in macrophages and monocytes. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of anti-chlamydial compounds previously identified in the research group on the persistent infektion of C.pneumoniae. For the study, the growth of the bacteria was monitored by qPCR in different cell lines and the compatibility of the compounds with the used persistence model was studied. Four different cell lines were used in the study; HL epithelial cells, Raw264.7 macrophages, THP1 monocytes and macrophages. The effect of compounds on the used cell line was first examined by viability assays. For further studies, C.pneumoniae growth was studied in different cell lines. An qPCR method was set up and used to monitor C.pneumoniae genome copy numbers in infected samples. Based on the growth curves, the measurement points were determined for further studies. Finally, the effect of suitable compounds on C.pneumoniae infection was investigated in epithelial, monocyte and macrophage cell lines. From the investigated compounds, Schisandra chinensis-lingnans were selected for further studies with Raw264.7 cells. The genome number wa not found to decrease compared to the after schisandrin or schisandrin B treatment. In the experiment of the growth of the bacterium, schisandrin-treated samples showed that the genome number of bacterium would be re-grown. This may potentially mean the persistent infection change back to the active form, whereby the bacterium resumed proliferate in the host cell. Based on the results of this study, schisandrin may be considered a potential compound for further studies and a possible model compound for the development of compound against C.pneumoniae infection. However, further studies on the effect of the compounds on persistent infection are needed.