,. Another well-known factor limiting the efficacy of antimicrobial treatment is the development of antibiotic resistance through acquisition of resistant determinants by horizontal gene transfer and/or other mechanisms. In veterinary medicine, tetracycline-resistant C. suis strains carrying the tet resistance gene have been described in the USA and Europe. Very recent findings reported C. suis in the eyes of trachoma patients in Nepal, highlighting its zoonotic potential. Various studies have detected resistance of C. trachomatis to other antibiotics, such as rifampin, in vitro. The obligate intracellular lifestyle of chlamydiae poses additional challenges to antibiotic treatment, as the compound must 10 wIRA/VIS Inhibits Chlamydia penetrate the host cell to get access to the membrane-bound intracytoplasmic inclusion. Facing all these limitations and drawbacks, alternative therapeutic strategies to treat chlamydiae are worth investigating. A small-molecule inhibitor 
12695532 of type III secretion leading to a dosedependent decrease of chlamydial inclusions in acutely infected host cells was reported by Muschiol et al. and other chemical inhibitors of chlamydial development are being explored. Unfortunately, there are few other studies investigating non-chemical agents for inhibition/treatment of chlamydial infections. Ermolaeva et al. investigated the effect of non-thermal plasma on C. trachomatis-infected McCoy cells. NTP is the flow of partially ionized, neutral gas BIBW 2992 site obtained at atmospheric pressure with a temperature of 3040uC. Infected cells were treated with NTP 24 hpi for 2 min and medium was subsequently replaced. Sub-passage titer analysis revealed a reduction by a factor of 1.96106 compared to untreated and argon-treated controls. Furthermore, the authors could show that treatment of extracellular EBs led to a very low infectivity rate compared to untreated controls. However, there was a decrease of cell viability of approximately 20% at 24 h after treatment. Wasson et al. used visible light to irradiate C. trachomatisinfected HeLa cells for 88 seconds 14642775 using different exposure intensities at 2 and 24 hpi, respectively. Using quantitative real-time PCR, they found an inhibitory effect on chlamydial growth in acute and penicillin-induced persistent infections after irradiation. Interestingly, a clinical study found evidence for a lower rate of wound infection following abdominal surgery when patients were subjected to the combination of wIRA and visible light postoperatively twice a day for 20 min. In the present study, we demonstrate that irradiation of chlamydial EBs with wIRA/VIS prior to infection of cell cultures reduces their infectivity, regardless of the chlamydial strain and the host cell used. We observed a 65% reduction of IFU/mL when irradiated C. trachomatis EBs were propagated in HeLa cells and a 90% IFU reduction when irradiated C. pecorum EBs were inoculated into Vero cells. Taken together, our findings show that wIRA/VISexposure can significantly reduce infectivity of extracellular infectious EBs. Thus, wIRA/VIS irradiation might prove beneficial for inhibiting the transmission of EBs. We further investigated the effect of single-dose treatment on fully developed chlamydial inclusions. We investigated two different mammalian cell lines and two different chlamydial strains. Our findings demonstrate that a single dose of wIRA/VIS irradiation is sufficient to reduce the amount of chlamydial inclusions in vitro regardless of
