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In 1974, he and his graduate student, Mary Green, along with Paul Heidger, a faculty collaborator, published two landmark companion papers in the journal ''Infection and Immunity''. The papers detail how L-form bacteria inside an experimental human embryonic kidney tissue culture system are able to persist in cells and explains how they are able to revert into the cell wall-containing parent bacterial form. They also proposed a detailed reproductive cycle for L-form bacteria, followed by electron microscopy of the microorganisms.

These papers set the stage for Domingue and his team to delve even further into the role that cryptic atypical bacteria play in causing persistent and recurrent infections.

In 1997, he and a colleague, the late Hannah Woody published an invited extensive review article on chronic bacterial infection in ''Clinical Microbiological Reviews''. Among their conclusions was the claim that "difficult to culture and dormant bacteria are involved in the latency of infection and that these persistent bacteria may be pathogenic."

He implicated atypical bacteria in several kidney-related diseases including pyelonephritis, glomerulonephritis, idiopathic hematuria, and interstitial cystitis. He also speculated about their role in other diseases such as rheumatic fever, tuberculosis, syphilis, and rheumatoid arthritis.

In the review Domingue stated, "Clearly, any patient with a history of recurrent infection and persistent disability is sending the signal that the phenomenon (infection with atypical bacteria) could be occurring. The so-called autoimmune diseases in which no organism can be identified by routine testing techniques are particularly suspect." He went on to conclude, "Bacteriologic advances, which include special culture media and stains, electron microscopy and molecular techniques such as PCR (polymerase chain reaction), have revealed an increasing number of previously unidentifiable organisms in a variety of pathologic conditions. It is unwise to dismiss the pathogenic capacities of any microbe in a patient with a mysterious disease." Over the course of his thirty-nine year career Domingue published numerous papers, monographs, and book chapters devoted to atypical bacterial research. He delivered many invited international and national lectures about bacterial persistence and expression of disease and wrote a book on the subject, ''Cell Wall-Deficient Bacteria: Basic Principles and Clinical Significance''. His papers are filled with photomicrographs of atypical bacteria inside human and animal cells and in laboratory cultures.


Adapted from the Wikipedia article Gerald Domingue, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki