Efficiency of Chlamydia Pneumoniae Culture in the Upper Airway Epithelial Cell Lines: AMC-HN-4, AMC-HN-7, and AMC-HN-8 / 대한이비인후과학회지

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Chlamydia pneumoniae (C. pneumoniae) is a well-known pathogen of upper and lower respiratory tract infection. For a more efficient and practical cell culture system, we studied the growth of two clinical isolates of C. pneumoniae in selected cell lines derived from the human respiratory tract. MATERIALS AND METHOD: HeLa 229, HEp-2, which are well-known cell lines for the culture of C. pneumoniae, and AMC-HN-4, AMC-HN-7, AMC-HN-8, which are the newly developed cell lines in Korea were examined. Strains of C. pneumoniae used in this study were TW-183 and LKK-1 (the first Korean strain). Chlamydia was inoculated on each confluent cell line and incubated for 48 hrs. After staining with anti-Chlamydial lipopolysaccharide monoclonal antibody, we compared the efficiency of the C. pneumoniae infection on each cell line by counting the inclusion bodies. RESULTS: In culturing C. pneumoniae LKK-1, AMC-HN-4 cells consistently yielded higher inclusion body counts than HeLa 229 cells did, whereas inclusion body counts by AMC-HN-7 cells was low. AMC-HN-7, AMC HN-8 cells yielded lower inclusion body counts than HEp-2 cells. In culturing C. pneumoniae TW-183, AMC-HN-4, AMC-HN-7, and AMC-HN-8 cells did not yield lower inclusion body counts than HeLa 229 cells did. AMC-HN-7 cells yielded lower inclusion body counts than HEp-2 cells. CONCLUSION: The newly established upper airway epithelial cell lines, AMC HN-4 and AMC HN-8, had similar culture efficiency as HeLa 229 and HEp-2 cells for Chlamydial infection; therefore, these two cell lines could be used for the future studies of C. pneumoniae.