Adherence to and invasion of epithelial cells by Neisseria gonorrhoeae

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), about 88 million infections with gonococci occur worldwide each year. However, the so far prevailing attitude in western industrialized countries is to consider these infections as negligible. A reporting obligation for N. gonorrhoeae infections in Germany was abolished in 2001. New findings now show that multi-resistant variants are emerging which are unsusceptible even to third generation cephalosporin antibiotics. Thus, one of the most common sexual transmitted diseases that also facilitates HIV infections is about to become untreatable. This development underlines the need of intensifying efforts that help to answer open questions in N. gonorrhoeae pathogenicity such as type VI pilus-mediated adherence with its sole natural host.