Abstract
TRACHOMA agent, a member of the psittacosis–lymphogranuloma–trachoma (PLT) group, is an obligate parasite of the conjunctival cells in the human eye. Some strains, at least, retain their infectivity for the human eye after adaptation to growth and several passages in human cell cultures1,2. The infectious particles of trachoma agent are 0.3 µm in diameter and contain both DNA and RNA3. After entry into the host cell cytoplasm, the elementary bodies develop into large compact inclusion bodies containing glycogen4,5. These contain non-infectious structures in which the infectious elementary bodies are formed towards the end of the growth cycle. In this respect, the trachoma agent differs from the psittacosis agent. The latter forms diffuse cytoplasmic inclusions4, consisting of large reticulated forms which replicate by binary fission to produce elementary bodies similar to those of trachoma agent6. Both the large forms and the elementary bodies of psittacosis agent contain DNA and RNA7, and the large forms contain soluble RNA species8,9, ribosomal sub-units and ribosomes10. This investigation deals with the nature of the RNA species and the ribosomal subunits in the infectious elementary bodies of trachoma agent.
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References
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SAROV, I., BECKER, Y. RNA in the Elementary Bodies of Trachoma Agent. Nature 217, 849–852 (1968). https://doi.org/10.1038/217849b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/217849b0
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