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The Pathogenic Spirochetes: strategies for evasion of host immunity and persistence pp 3–18Cite as

Treponema pallidum Dissemination; Facilitating Immune Evasion and Bacterial Persistence

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Abstract

Syphilis is a chronic multistage disease, usually transmitted sexually or in utero, which affects more than 12 million people globally each year and is caused by the bacterium T. pallidum subsp. pallidum. Although developing nations account for the majority of new syphilis infections (Gerbase et al. 1998), rapidly increasing syphilis infection rates have also been observed in Europe (Righarts et al. 2004), Australia (Jin et al. 2005), and North America (Kent and Romanelli 2008) over the course of the past decade. Two additional ways in which syphilis infections impact health are congenital syphilis, which remains a major health concern in developing nations and results in spontaneous abortion, stillbirth, postpartum death or significant newborn malformations (Walker and Walker 2007), and the well-documented capacity of T. pallidum infection to significantly increase the risk of HIV transmission and acquisition (Nusbaum et al. 2004).

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  1. Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology, University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada

    Simon Houston Ph.D & Caroline E. Cameron Ph.D.

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Correspondence to Caroline E. Cameron Ph.D. .

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  1. Tulane University Health Sciences Center, Covington, 70433, Louisiana, USA

    Monica E. Embers

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Houston, S., Cameron, C.E. (2012). Treponema pallidum Dissemination; Facilitating Immune Evasion and Bacterial Persistence. In: Embers, M. (eds) The Pathogenic Spirochetes: strategies for evasion of host immunity and persistence. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5404-5_1

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