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Investigation of the immune escape mechanism of Treponema pallidum

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Abstract

Background

Syphilis is a chronic sexually transmitted disease caused by Treponema pallidum subspecies pallidum (T. pallidum), which is a public health problem that seriously affects human health worldwide. T. pallidum is characterized by early transmission and immune escape and is therefore termed an “invisible pathogen”.

Methods

This review systematically summarizes the host’s innate and adaptive immune responses to T. pallidum infection as well as the escape mechanisms of T. pallidum.

Purpose

To lay the foundation for assessing the pathogenic mechanism and the systematic prevention and treatment of syphilis.

Conclusion

The immune escape mechanism of T. pallidum plays an important role in its survival. Exploring the occurrence and development of these mechanisms has laid the foundation for the development of syphilis vaccine.

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Acknowledgements

Thank you all for helping and guiding me.

Funding

This study was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Hunan Province (2022JJ30532), Clinical “4310” Project of the University of South China (20224310NHYCG02) and Hunan Provincial Innovation University of South China Innovation Foundation for Postgraduate (No. 213YXC016).

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Author notes

  1. Yun Tang, Yingjie Zhou and Bisha He have contributed equally to this study.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Clinical Laboratory Medicine, Institution of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, Hengyang Medical School, The First Affiliated Hospital, University of South China, No. 69, Chuanshan Road, Hengyang City, 421000, Hunan, China

    Yun Tang, Yingjie Zhou, Bisha He, Ting Cao, Xiangping Zhou, Lichang Ning, En Chen, Yumeng Li, Xiaoping Xie, Binfeng Peng, Yibao Hu & Shuangquan Liu

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  1. Yun Tang
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Contributions

Wrote the paper: YT, YZ and BH. Revised the paper: TC, XZ, BP, YB, CN, EC, XX and YL. Critically revised the manuscript for important intellectual content: SL. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Shuangquan Liu.

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The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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This review does not contain any research on humans and animals.

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Tang, Y., Zhou, Y., He, B. et al. Investigation of the immune escape mechanism of Treponema pallidum. Infection 51, 305–321 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s15010-022-01939-z

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