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. 1981 May;32(2):908–915. doi: 10.1128/iai.32.2.908-915.1981

Cultivation of Virulent Treponema pallidum in Tissue Culture

A Howard Fieldsteel 1, David L Cox 1, Randolph A Moeckli 1
PMCID: PMC351528  PMID: 7019081

Abstract

In a series of seven experiments, the virulent Nichols strain of Treponema pallidum was shown to attach and replicate on the surface of tissue culture cells of cottontail rabbit epithelium (Sf1Ep) growing in conventional monolayer cultures under an atmosphere of 1.5% oxygen. Five days after inoculation of 106T. pallidum, the number of treponemes had increased to between 8 × 106 and 2.59 × 107. The viability of harvested organisms ranged from 86 to 97%. The number of T. pallidum continued to increase, generally reaching a plateau between days 9 and 12 of incubation, with increases ranging up to 100-fold and averaging 49-fold. There appeared to be a ceiling of multiplication of about 2 × 108 irrespective of the inoculum, which ranged from 106 to 108T. pallidum. Concurrent deoxyribonucleic acid assays were performed on the cultures containing T. pallidum to obtain further evidence of replication. Significant increases in treponemal deoxyribonucleic acid were observed when the inocula ranged from 106 to 107, with the greatest increases, as might be expected, being in the former group. There was also excellent correlation in the amount of deoxyribonucleic acid per treponeme; the averages for the 106, 2.5 × 106, and 107 groups were 3.46 × 10−14, 3.28 × 10−14, and 2.79 × 10−14 g per treponeme, respectively (3.14 ± 0.72 × 10−14 g per treponeme). In each experiment, organisms were harvested from the group inoculated with 106T. pallidum after 7 days of incubation to test for virulence. In all instances, the organisms were virulent; erythematous, indurated, treponeme-containing lesions were produced from an average of six to seven organisms. Scanning electron microscopy revealed that during the course of replication many microcolonies of treponemes formed on the surface of the cells.

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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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