Quantifying the growth of chlamydia suis in cell culture using high-content microscopy.

The porcine pathogen Chlamydia suis is widespread in pig farming. Isolation of Chlamydia suis in cell culture is crucial for the generation and characterization of new isolates. However, isolation of Chlamydia suis strains from field samples is fastidious. Therefore, we exploited high-content microscopy to quantify the growth of Chlamydia suis strains in different cell lines. We found that the cell line yielding optimal propagation of Chlamydia suis differed among isolates, and we identified cell lines outperforming those routinely used for chlamydial isolation. We conclude that adaptation of the propagation procedure to the origin of the putative field isolate is highly recommended to improve the recovery rate.