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Hello. My name is
Dr. Sarah Fouch,
and within this short recording,
we will be considering
Treponema pallidum.
This is the cause of syphilis.
Within this recording,
we will consider the stages of
a syphilis infection and
the virulence factors
produced by this
organism that enables it
to cause the infection that
it is associated with.
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When we think about
Treponema pallidum,
this is a strict human pathogen,
so we don't see it in any other
animals or within plants.
Now, the problem that we
have with syphilis is we
cannot grow this organism
on routine culture media.
It cannot grow in anything
that has cell free cultures,
and the reason being
is because it needs
human host cells in
order to survive.
It needs to get into
the host cells and
it needs to survive within
that host cell environment.
Unless we're using techniques
such as tissue culture,
which are quite problematic,
we cannot grow syphilis in
the same way as we
grow other organisms.
Now, we can visualize
the Treponema pallidum
in patient samples,
and we can use a range
of different
microscopy techniques.
A good example is dark
ground illumination,
and when we visualize using
dark ground illumination,
we have a very dark
background and
spirochetes will actually
look very light,
so they're quite easy to see.
We can also use fluorescent
linked antibodies.
The spirochetes
will fluoresce if
we are using a
fluorescent microscopy.
When we think about
the image here,
obviously this is
an illustration.
But you can see that
Treponema pallidum is
actually a spirochete,
so the organisms are actually
in a helical fashion,
so they're called spirochetes.
