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. 1982 Feb;58(1):1–11. doi: 10.1136/sti.58.1.1

Morphological destruction of cultured cells by the attachment of Treponema pallidum.

T J Fitzgerald, L A Repesh, S G Oakes
PMCID: PMC1045991  PMID: 7034856

Abstract

The incubation of Treponema pallidum with rabbit testicular cells, HEP-2 cells, human foreskin cells, rat cardiac cells, and rat skeletal muscle cells caused morphological disruption of these cultured cells. Control preparations of heat-inactivated treponemes, a high-speed supernatant in which treponemes had been pelleted, and culture medium failed to damage the tissue cells, as did viable treponemes when the cells were incubated in inverted Sykes-Moore chambers. Thus, cellular disruption is not associated with soluble treponemal, soluble inflammatory, or soluble testicular constituents but is mediated by the specific attachment of T pallidum. This organism apparently elaborates some type of toxic activity that lyses membranes: this may explain some of the histopathology of syphilitic disease.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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