Molecular Epidemiology of N. gonorrhoeae

淋病是一种常见的细菌感染，主要通过性接触传播。淋球菌感染具有一种流行病学模式，其特征是感染集中在被称为“核心群体”的社会或地理界定的社区。这些“核心群体”被认为是社区内感染持续传播的储存库，因此，了解组成生物体的生物学性质对公共卫生控制战略至关重要。我们建议研究淋病奈瑟氏菌的分子进化在一个社会随着时间的推移，并与有关的流行病学信息的主机个人。这是两位传染病和淋病流行病学专家与一位人口遗传学家的合作成果。将使用两种分子分型方法来表征淋球菌分离株：por基因测序和多位点序列分型（MLST）方案，其中通过对基因的约500 bp内部片段进行测序来表征6个管家基因的等位基因。本研究有三个主要目的：第一是确定种群遗传结构的时间趋势;在马里兰州巴尔的摩的一个高患病率社区20年来淋病的发病率。第二种方法是将群体遗传参数的变化与宿主个人居住在“核心”或“外围”地区的流行病学信息联系起来。我们的主要假设是，更高水平的遗传多样性，更强烈的选择压力，por基因，正增长率，以及较高的重组率相对于周边群体将N的群体遗传结构的特点。核心是淋病。第三个目标是确定性别、年龄或传播与局部感染是否影响N的群体遗传结构。淋病

Gonorrhea is a common bacterial infection that is transmitted primarily by sexual contact. Gonococcal infections have an epidemiological pattern characterized by the concentration of infections in social or geographically defined communities termed "core groups". These "core groups" have been proposed as reservoirs for the continued transmission of infections within communities, and therefore, understanding the biological nature of the constituent organisms is important for public health control strategies. We propose to examine the molecular evolution of Neisseria gonorrhea within a community over time and in relation to epidemiological information pertaining to the host individuals. This is a collaborative effort between two experts in infectious disease and epidemiology of gonorrhea and a population geneticist. Two molecular typing methods will be used to characterize gonococcal isolates: por gene sequencing and multi-locus sequence typing (MLST) scheme, in which alleles at six housekeeping genes are characterized by sequencing approximately 500 bp internal fragments of the genes. The study has three main objectives The first is to determine temporal trends in the population genetic structure of N. gonorrhea over a 20-year period in a high prevalence community, Baltimore, MD. The second is to correlate changes in population genetic parameters with epidemiological information pertaining to the host individual's residence in a "core" or "peripheral" region. Our major hypothesis is that higher levels of genetic diversity, more intense selection pressure on the por gene, a positive growth rate, and a higher recombination rate relative to the peripheral population will characterize the population genetic structure of N. gonorrhea in the core. The third aim is to determine whether gender, age, or disseminated versus local infection influences the population genetic structure of N. gonorrhea.