However, because of N. gonorrhoeaes high affinity for horizontal gene transfer, antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea is seen as an emerging public health threat. Serum resistance
As a Gram negative bacteria, N. gonorrhoeae requires defense mechanisms to protect itself against the complement system (or complement cascade), whose components are found with human serum. There are three different pathways that activate this system however, they all result in the activation of complement protein 3 (C3). A cleaved portion of this protein, C3b, is deposited on pathogenic surfaces and results in opsonization as well as the downstream activation of the membrane attack complex. N. gonorrhoeae has several mechanisms to avoid this action. As a whole, these mechanisms are referred to as serum resistance. History
Name origin
Neisseria gonorrhoeae is named for Albert Neisser, who isolated it as the causative agent of the disease gonorrhea in 1878. Galen (130 AD) coined the term "gonorrhea" from the Greek gonos which means "seed" and rhoe which means "flow". Thus, gonorrhea means "flow of seed", a description referring to the white penile discharge, assumed to be semen, seen in male infection. Discovery
In 1878, Albert Neisser isolated and visualized N. gonorrhoeae diplococci in samples of pus from 35 men and women with the classic symptoms of genitourinary infection with gonorrhea – two of whom also had infections of the eyes. In 1882, Leistikow and Loeffler were able to grow the organism in culture.
Then in 1883, Max Bockhart proved conclusively that the bacterium isolated by Albert Neisser was the causative agent of the disease known as gonorrhea by inoculating the penis of a healthy man with the bacteria. The man developed the classic symptoms of gonorrhea days after, satisfying the last of Kochs postulates. Until this point, researchers debated whether syphilis and gonorrhea were manifestations of the same disease or two distinct entities. One such 18th-century researcher, John Hunter, tried to settle the debate in 1767 by inoculating a man with pus taken from a patient with gonorrhea. He erroneously concluded that both syphilis and gonorrhea were indeed the same disease when the man developed the copper-colored rash that is classic for syphilis. Although many sources repeat that Hunter inoculated himself, others have argued that it was in fact another man. After Hunters experiment other scientists sought to disprove his conclusions by inoculating other male physicians, medical students, and incarcerated men with gonorrheal pus, who all developed the burning and discharge of gonorrhea. One researcher, Ricord, took the initiative to perform 667 inoculations of gonorrheal pus on patients of a mental hospital, with zero cases of syphilis. Notably, the advent of penicillin in the 1940s made effective treatments for gonorrhea available. See also
Neisseria meningitidis

References
External links

Type strain of Neisseria gonorrhoeae at BacDive – the Bacterial Diversity Metadatabase