Gonorrhea: Immune Escape and Immunotherapeutic Strategies

摘要

The sexually transmitted disease caused by Neisseria gonorrhoeae (NG) remains a health hazard and its incidence continues to rise throughout the world. It has been challenging to develop a protective vaccine or other means to both prevent infection and treat infected individuals. The bacteria undergo continuous genetic variations, which is responsible in large part for the failure of developing a vaccine that can recognize all of the antigenic variants. In addition, the microorganism also inhibits the host immune system via its ability to suppress both cell-mediated and antibody-mediated immune responses directly. Clearly, these various immune escape mechanisms that are mediated by gonorrhea mimic the various escape mechanisms mediated by most cancers. Most recently, several novel immunotherapeutic strategies have been developed to overcome cancer immune resistance, suggesting the possibility that such novel therapeutic strategies, which are successful in various cancers, can be applied to gonor-rheal infections. This mini-review discusses briefly the pathogenesis of NG infection and the various mechanisms of resistance to both antibiotics and to vaccines and suggests alternatives to overcome resistance with the development of both preventive and treatment strategies.