Immunobiology of Chlamydia

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The candidate is applying for a career development award in order to gain training in chlamydia-specific microbiology and immunology with the goal of pursuing a career in chlamydia immunobiology. He will work in his own laboratory under the supervision of Drs. Stanley Spinola (mentor) and Byron Batteiger (co-mentor). A local committee consisting of experts in bacterial pathogenesis and cellular immunology will monitor Dr. Johnson's progress. In addition, he will travel to the University of Arkansas for training in MoPn animal models with Dr. Roger Rank (consultant). The candidate has significant prior training in cellular immunology and animal models of viral immunopathogenesis. The mentored development outlined in this application should provide a solid foundation for the candidate's future studies of chlamydia immunobiology. During the award period the candidate will apply a unique T cell culture system that he developed during prior training to study the mucosal immune response to chlamydia infections of the reproductive tract. Much of the work done to date in the field has utilized T lymphocytes from the systemic immune compartment. The candidate's proposed research using mucosal immunology methodologies should compliment that work. Based on his prior research, Dr. Johnson hypothesizes that use of epithelial antigen presenting cells (APC) will facilitate outgrowth of mucosal T lymphocytes with unique properties and possibly important roles in host defense against chlamydia infections. The goals of this proposal are: 1) To derive epithelial cell lines from the upper reproductive tract of female mice to serve as APC for studying mucosal immune responses to chlamydia infections. 2) To investigate chlamydia immunobiology using chlamydia-infected epithelial cell lines as APC for ex vivo studies of CD4 and CD8 T cells responding to genital tract infections. 3) To determine the effect of adoptive transfer of mucosal CD8 and CD4 T lymphocytes on the natural course of MoPn genital tract infections.