The spirochetal pathogenTreponema pallidumcauses 5 million new cases of venereal syphilis worldwide each year. One major obstacle to syphilis prevention and treatment is the lack of suitable experimental animal models to study its pathogenesis. Accordingly, in this study, we further evaluated the responses of mice toTreponema pallidum. Quantitative polymerase chain reaction showed thatTreponema pallidumcould colonize the heart, liver, spleen, kidneys, and testicles of C57BL/6 mice, and the organism may be able to rapidly penetrate the blood-brain barrier in mice by 24h after infection. In subs...
