The major outer membrane protein nucleotide sequence of Chlamydia trachomatis serovar E. Nucleic Acids Res

The major outer membrane protein (MOMP) of C. trachomatis is surface exposed and accounts for 60 % of the outer membrane protein of this widespread pathogen. This protein has been shown to contain conserved regions among the 15 serovars of C. trachomatis as well as variable domains (VD) that are partially responsible for antigenic differences among the serovars. In addition antibodies raised to this protein have the ability to neutralize this pathogen both in vivo and in vitro. Therefore these characteristics of MOMP make it an excellent candidate for incorporation into a subunit vaccine against this pathogen. In order to construct such a vaccine it is necessary to have sequence information on all the serovars so that variable as well as conserved regions can be explored. We present here the complete sequence of serovar E which is the most common serovar causing sexually transmitted infections in the Western World. The gene for the MOMP protein from C. trachomatis, serovar E was sequenced from polymerase chain reaction products (PCR). The PCR was performed using the following oligonucleotide primers which contained Sail and BamHI sites, respectively, a