Search results for "2402 Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology"

Origin of modern syphilis and emergence of a pandemic Treponema pallidum cluster

2016

The abrupt onslaught of the syphilis pandemic that started in the late fifteenth century established this devastating infectious disease as one of the most feared in human history1 . Surprisingly, despite the availability of effective antibiotic treatment since the mid-twentieth century, this bacterial infection, which is caused by Treponema pallidum subsp. pallidum (TPA), has been re-emerging globally in the last few decades with an estimated 10.6 million cases in 2008 (ref. 2). Although resistance to penicillin has not yet been identified, an increasing number of strains fail to respond to the secondline antibiotic azithromycin3. Little is known about the genetic patterns in current infec…