Researchers say that gender matters when it comes to gonorrhea



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Washington: Gender is important for gonorrhea because the symptoms in men are more marked than in women.

A recent study by researchers from the Tufts University School of Medicine conducted the first comprehensive comparison of gonococcal genes. regulation in men and women infected with Neisseria Gonorrhoeae, thereby identifying bad-specific signatures in infection and in antibiotic resistance genes.

In the past decade, however, there has been emergence of antimicrobial resistant strains of N. Gonorrhea, the bacterial pathogen responsible for gonorrhea.
In 2013, N. Gonorrhoeae was announced as a threat to public health.

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 78 million people worldwide are infected with gonorrhea each year. Men with infections tend to have obvious symptoms while women are often asymptomatic or have mild symptoms. In men as in women, the infection usually disappears with antibiotic treatment.

"We relied on our earlier work on gene expression during infection in women to include both bades in this badysis. during active disease in males and their asymptomatic partners, "said researcher, Caroline A. Genco." We discovered that when bacteria infect the male, it's a different gene expression profile than the one where they infect the female.While considering how much the two environments are fundamentally different, that makes sense, "she added.

Up to now, the infection has been mainly studied in tissue culture, male human models and mice.These studies have provided key information on the interactions between bacteria and the host because according to Genco "they have important limitations, namely the lack of human response in humans. "

" Studying Active Infection in Men and Women "

To understand the disease in both bades, the team of researchers has examined the manifestation of the has a disease in a cohort of subjects attending a clinic that treats badually transmitted infections in a country where high rates of gonorrhea and antibiotic resistance.

Specimens were collected from men who visited the clinic for treatment for gonorrhea and from female partners who sought treatment after confirmation of the diagnosis. Researchers used RNA sequencing to identify host and bacterial genes expressed during a mucosal infection.

The badysis revealed that nine percent of the gonococcal genes exhibited increased expression in men and included genes involved in immune interactions. In genome-wide DNA sequencing, both men and women had similar genotypes resistant to antibiotics, but the researchers observed an expression of these genes four times more resistant to antibiotics. in men

The researchers finally noted that the limits include the small sample size and the potential variance in the stages of infection in males compared to females. A larger scale study using additional genetic badyzes is currently underway.

The study appears in mSphere journal.

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