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Isolation and Purification of Treponema pallidum from Syphilitic Lesions in Rabbits

¹ World Health Organization Collaborating Center for Reference and Research in Treponematoses, Department of Microbiology, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland 21205

ABSTRACT

Treponema pallidum were extracted from testicular syphilomas of corticosteroid-treated rabbits and purified by differential centrifugation. The steroid therapy allowed a longer holding time for infected rabbits, which produced greater treponeme yields, averaging 1.58 x 10¹⁰ treponemes per rabbit. The treatment, which also diminished cellular infiltration and increased the extracellular mucoid material in lesions, produced much cleaner suspensions than preparations from nontreated animals. Most of the treponemes in the purified suspensions were still motile, and none carried demonstrable host immunoglobulin. The preparations were free of recognizable host tissue debris and they contained, on the average, 1.9 x 10^–7 µg of protein per treponeme.

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