Grant: Operating Grant

The sexually transmitted infection gonorrhea is one of the most prevalent infections in the world, and remains one of the leading causes of female infertility and blindness in new infants who are born to infected mothers. These outcomes of infection result from an overly aggressive 'innate' immune response that causes damage to tissues that are infected by the bacterium Neisseria gonorrhoeae. Despite this fact, the immune system does not 'remember' the infection, allowing an individual to get repeatedly infected with these bacteria. This research proposal describes work that aims to explain these observations based upon our finding that the bacteria express a family of proteins, known as the Opa proteins, which bind to human CEACAM receptor proteins that can either activate or suppress a variety of human cell functions depending upon the cellular and immunological context.