Abstract
It has been increasingly recognized that Chlamydia pneumoniae may be involved in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis; accordingly, detection of this bacterium in blood from atherosclerotic patients may play an important role in diagnosis of possible complications of atherosclerosis including stroke. However, there is little understanding about the detection incidence of C. pneumoniae in the blood of stroke patients. In the present study, we performed the PCR specific for C. pneumoniae 16S rRNA to determine the C. pneumoniae DNA in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) obtained from patients with atherothrombotic infarction. C. pneumoniae DNA was detected in 5 out of 13 blood samples from the patients with atherothrombotic infarction. These results indicate a possible correlation between C. pneumoniae infection and atherothrombotic infarction attributable to atherosclerosis.
