Gonococcal infection, also known as gonorrhea, is caused by the bacteria Neisseria gonorrhoeae. It is a common sexually transmitted infection that often presents with urethritis in men and may be asymptomatic in women. If left untreated, it can lead to pelvic inflammatory disease and infertility in women. The bacteria adhere to and invade non-ciliated epithelial cells in the nasopharynx, urethra, and cervix through pili and OPA proteins. It is able to evade the immune system through antigenic variation of these surface proteins.

1. GONOCOCCAL
INFECTION
Dr . T.Arivazhagan
Post Graduate
Department of Pathology

3. GONORRHEA
•Greek word
•GONOS – SEEDS
•RHOIA - FLOW

4. Morphology
• Gram - ve diplococci
• Shape of coffee bean appearance
• Aerobic bacteria
• Grow best on enriched media – lysed
sheep’s blood agar

6. •15 species are available
•Pathogens – N.Meningitis,Gonorrhea,Cuniculi
•Others non pathogens

7. •Important cause of sexually transmitted disease
•It is second only to C .Trachomatis
•Men – Urethritis
•Women – often asymptomatic , may go unnoticed
•Untreated – Leads to PID – Infertility or Ectopic pregnancy

8. •Usually manifest in the genital or cervical mucosa
•Disseminated infections also can occur
•Commonly seen in person who lacks complement
proteins
•That forms a membrane attack complex

9. mac
Normally permeable of water & ions into the cell
Leads to lysis & death of the microbes
Usually occurs thin wall microbes like NEISSERIA

10. Neonatal gonococcal infection
•Cause conjunctivitis
•Leads to blindness
•Preventable by instillation of
•silver nitrate or antibiotics

14. Pathogenesis
Organism adhere & invade the nonciliated epithelial cells
Nasopharynx, urethra, cervix
Initially adherence mediated by long pili
Bind to the CD46-expressed all human nucleated cells
OPA proteins located outer membrane of the bacteria
Which increase & promote the entry of bacteria into the cell

16. •It posses antigenic variation property
•By which escape from the immune response
•It can generate new antigens by special genetic
mechanisms
•This mechanisms involves both pili & OPA proteins

17. PILI
•Pili are composed of polypeptides
•Encoded by pilin gene – consists of promotor & coding
sequence for 10 to 15 pili protein variants
•At any point in time only one of these coding sequence is
adjacent to the promotor
•Allowing it to be expressed

18. OPA PROTEIN
•OPA protein – contain several repeats of 5
nucleotide sequence
•Frequently deleted or duplicated
•Shift the reading frame – It encodes new
sequence