Yaws: 110 Years After Castellani's Discovery of Treponema pallidum subspecies pertenue

Abstract

Abstract. Yaws is a neglected infectious disease that affects mostly children and adolescents living in poor, rural communities in humid, tropical areas of Africa, southeast Asia, and the Pacific Islands. The etiological agent of yaws, Treponema pallidum subspecies pertenue (T. pertenue), was discovered by Aldo Castellani in 1905 shortly after Schaudinn and Hoffmann discovered the etiological agent of syphilis, T. pallidum subspecies pallidum. The discovery of T. pertenue enabled the development of animal models and the identification of an effective antibiotic treatment (i.e

Immunogenicity and immunoreactivity of Tp0821 recombinant protein from Treponema pallidum

“…Treponema pallidum (Tp) is a pathogen, which causes syphilis, a health-threatening sexually transmitted disease. During the long disease course, syphilis invades reproductive organs and the skin at the early stage, and involves almost all organs/systems at the advanced stage (1,2). The only infective source of syphilis is humans, and the disease can be divided into congenital syphilis or acquired syphilis depending on the mode of infection (3,4).…”

Flies and Yaws: Molecular Studies Provide New Insight

“…Yaws is caused by infection with Treponema pallidum subspecies pertenue ( TPE ), a spirochete that is very closely related to T. pallidum subsp. pallidum ( TPA ), the etiologic agent of syphilis ( Giacani and Lukehart, 2014 , Stamm, 2015 ). Whereas syphilis is a sexually transmitted disease with a global distribution, yaws is transmitted by direct contact of broken skin with active lesions and primarily affects children who live in poor rural communities in humid, tropical areas of Africa, Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands.…”

“…In 2012, the World Health Organization (WHO) launched a yaws eradication program based on mass azithromycin treatment of individuals in endemic communities followed by clinical and serological surveys to detect and treat remaining cases and their contacts ( Giacani and Lukehart, 2014 , Stamm, 2015 ). An earlier WHO campaign conducted in the mid-20th century reduced the number of yaws cases by nearly 95%.…”

“…The possibility that insects (i.e., flies) act as a vector for yaws merits renewed consideration based on the results of observational and experimental studies that were conducted several decades ago in the pre-molecular era. In 1907, Castellani, who identified TPE as the etiologic agent of yaws ( Stamm, 2015 ), noted that non-biting flies “eagerly crowd” on the lesions of yaws patients and “sucking with avidity the secretion” may afterward alight on the broken skin of others, purportedly enabling the transmission of yaws ( Castellani, 1907 ). Castellani demonstrated that Musca domestica flies that fed on yaws patients' lesions could transmit yaws to monkeys whose skin had been scarified.…”