Analysis of the problem of molecular identification of wild (wtCT), plasmidless (p-CT) and Swedish (SE-nvCT) variants of Chlamydia trachomatis in Belarus

Abstract

To date, it is known that the population of Chlamydia trachomatis is genetically heterogeneous. Along with the originally described wild type (wtCT), mutant variants (mtCT) have been found in the world: plasmidless (p-CT), Swedish (SE-nvCT), Mexican (MX-nvCT), Finnish (FI-nvCT), with different virulence and tropicity to various organs and tissues. These variants may escape PCR diagnostics due to the absence of targets or the occurrence of changes in them, which makes it ineffective to use a number of diagnostic test systems for pathogen detection.Isolates of C. trachomatis collected on the territory of the Republic of Belarus during the period 2013–2022 in reproductive age persons with inflammatory urogenital tract diseases were analyzed. It was found that the dominant pathogen genovariant is the wild type wtCT ‒, approximately 93 %. Mutant strains that make up about 7 % of the pathogen population are represented by p-CT and SE-nvCT genovariants. There were no cases of identification of MX-nvCT and FI-nvCT genovariants in the analyzed sample of C. trachomatis isolates.It is necessary to further optimize the tactics of molecular biological identification of various C. trachomatis genovariants for effective microorganism detection and study of the chlamydial urogenital infection pathogenesis.