Identification of physiological and virulence traits of clinical strains of Cronobacter malonaticus

The Cronobacter malonaticus is a member of the genus Cronobacter which is considered an opportunistic pathogen. The significance of C. malonaticus has recently increased since it was documented to be involved in several serious neonatal infections. In addition, more than 40% of C. malonaticus in Cronobacter MLST-database was clinical or infant formula isolates. Unlike previous Cronobacter projects, this study is mainly focused on C. malonaticus and is aimed to investigate its physiological and virulence characteristics that enable this species to survive different stresses and cause adult and neonatal infections. This project first used a collection of 51 clinical Cronobacter isolates which were not speciated. The 51 strains were predominated by C. sakazakii ST4 (63 %, 32/51) and C. malonaticus ST7 (33 %, 17/51). Interestingly, despite the high clonality of Cronobacter, pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) profiles differentiated strains within each sequence type into 15 pulsotypes. Furthermore, this study shows the value of applying multilocus sequence typing (MLST) to bacterial population studies with strains from two patient cohorts, combined with PFGE for further discrimination of strains. Six sequence type 7 (ST7) strains were selected to represent the 5 C. malonaticus pulse types of the first part study and an additional 14 C. malonaticus strains were chosen from the Cronobacter MLST-database to represent different STs. C. malonaticus has shown ability to form biofilms, produce capsules, produce cellulose, express curli fimbriae, resist acid condition, survive human serum, produce siderophores, haemolysins, protease, and tolerate the used metals. The antibiotic sensitivity test revealed the sensitivity of C. malonaticus to the majority of antibiotics; however, C. malonaticus was resistant to tetracycline and some were resistant to chloramphenicol and intermediate resistant to cefotaxime. The presence of associated genes has been confirmed using the genomes of tested strains. C. malonaticus showed an ability to adhere and invade Caco-2, HBMEC, A549 and T24 cell lines. Moreover, the result shows that certain strains of C. malonaticus (including 1827 and 2018) were able to persist in macrophages. However, ST7 strains 1827 and 2018 proved to be the most invasive strains among all used strains. The CDC strain 1569 (ST307) which was isolated from the blood of a fatal neonatal case showed also significant results in this study. The analysis of the genomes of tested strains revealed the presence of several virulence associated genes such as curli fimbrial genes, apaH, ompA, ompX, ygdP, papC, ppk1, ibeB, Hfh, OatA, Clp proteins and others. Finally, the results of this project demonstrate the ability of C. malonaticus to overcome several stresses that could be faced either in the general environments or in the host body. Moreover, the findings of this study confirm the potential ability of C. malonaticus to cause serious infections in neonates or adults such as necrotising enterocolitis, meningitis, bacteremia, pneumonia and urinary tract infection

Environmental management plan (EMP)

In order to achieve a target on resource conservation and pollution reduction thus Environmental Management Plan (EMP) was introduced. An EMP is a site or project specific plan developed to ensure that appropriate environmental management practices are followed during a project’s construction and/or operation. Use of this guideline will improve the contribution that an EMP can make to the effectiveness of the EIA process and assists in ensuring that commitments made in project’s EIA are implemented. This EMP Guideline was developed in consultation with government agencies, contractors and industry groups. The EMP improve the need for the future-monitoring programme. In implementing the EMP, the project proponents need to adhere to the Terms and Conditions of Environmental Regulation and Guidelines. The monitoring of environmental parameters during the construction and operation phases of the project enables the project development to be implemented within safe environmental conditions

Uncertainty Quantification In Population Models

Uncertainty in general can be in the form of numeric or non-numeric, where the latter is qualitative and the former quantitative in nature. In numerical quantities, uncertainty can be random in nature, in which case probability theory is appropriate, or it can be as a result of unclear information, whereby fuzzy set theory is useful. Our concern will be on uncertainty in population models described by differential equations and solved numerically. We select the predator-prey model and susceptible- infected-recovered epidemic model to explore the uncertainty in the population models through the initial states. For randomness, the normal distribution is selected to intro- duce the uncertainty in the predator-prey model while we use the Beta distribution to insert the uncertainty in the epidemic model. For the fuzzy approach, we consider a triangular fuzzy number to treat the lack of information in the both models

Isolation and Identification of Multidrug-Resistant Raoultella terrigena as a Causative Agent of Urinary Tract Infection in Pregnant Women in the South of Libya

Raoutella terrigena is an opportunistic bacteria that rarely cause infections in humans. It is facultative Gram negative, rod shaped, present mostly in water, plants, soil, fish and insects. Two strains of R. terrigena have been isolated during a study searching of the must causative bacteria of urinary tract infection, in pregnant women where it counted about 2% of the total isolates. Susceptibility test has revealed multi drug resistance to about 61.5 % of the used antibiotics. This is the first documented report of such infection in Libya

Comparative Outer Membrane Protein Analysis of High and Low-Invasive Strains of Cronobacter malonaticus

are an important group of foodborne pathogens that has been linked to life-threatening infections in both infants and adults. The major infections associated with species are neonatal meningitis, necrotizing enterocolitis, and septicaemia. There are seven species in the genus, of which only three are of clinical importance; , and . To date most studies have focussed on as it is the major species associated with neonatal infections. However, recently , in particular sequence type 7 (ST7), has been noted as being prevalent in adult infections and therefore warranting further investigation. In this study, eight strains of ST7, that had been isolated from a wide range of sources and varied in their virulence, were chosen for proteomic analysis of their outer membrane proteins (OMPs). One-dimensional gel analysis revealed a ~29 kDa size band that was only present in the highly invasive strains. Subsequent mass spectrometric analysis identified several peptides that matched the flagellin protein. The presence of flagellin protein was confirmed in 2D gel spot. Mass spectrometry analysis of total OMPs revealed that the four highly invasive strains expressed the main flagellum proteins that were absent from the four low invasive strains. These were the flagellar hook protein FlgE, flagellar hook-associated protein 1, flagellar hook-associated protein, flagellin, and flagellar hook-filament junction protein FlgL. This data indicates that flagellar proteins may have an important role in the organism's invasion properties

The speciation and genotyping of Cronobacter isolates from hospitalised patients

The World Health Organization (WHO) has recognised all Cronobacter species as human pathogens. Among premature neonates and immunocompromised infants, these infections can be life-threatening, with clinical presentations of septicaemia, meningitis and necrotising enterocolitis. The neurological sequelae can be permanent and the mortality rate as high as 40 – 80 %. Despite the highlighted issues of neonatal infections, the majority of Cronobacter infections are in the elderly population suffering from serious underlying disease or malignancy and include wound and urinary tract infections, osteomyelitis, bacteraemia and septicaemia. However, no age profiling studies have speciated or genotyped the Cronobacter isolates. A clinical collection of 51 Cronobacter strains from two hospitals were speciated and genotyped using 7-loci multilocus sequence typing (MLST), rpoB gene sequence analysis, O-antigen typing and pulsed- field gel electrophoresis (PFGE). The isolates were predominated by C. sakazakii sequence type 4 (63 %, 32/51) and C. malonaticus sequence type 7 (33 %, 17/51). These had been isolated from throat and sputum samples of all age groups, as well as recal and faecal swabs. There was no apparent relatedness between the age of the patient and the Cronobacter species isolated. Despite the high clonality of Cronobacter , PFGE profiles differentiated strains across the sequence types into 15 pulsotypes. There was almost complete agreement between O-antigen typing and rpoB gene sequence analysis and MLST profiling. This study shows the value of applying MLST to bacterial population studies with strains from two patient cohorts, combined with PFGE for further discrimination of strains

The interaction of predator prey with uncertain initial population sizes (Interaksi pemangsa-mangsa dengan saiz awal populasi tak pasti)

Differential model of dynamical predator-prey system contains some factors that constitute a formal description of features of the interaction between the predator and its prey. The initial population sizes are the factors which affect the behaviour of the predator-prey interaction. These factors may not be uniquely defined. In this paper we study the effect of uncertain initial population sizes of predator and prey on the behaviour of predator-prey interaction. Results based on numerical simulations are discussed

Study on Concrete Containing Recycled Aggregates Immersed in Epoxy Resin

In recent decades, engineers have sought a more sustainable method to dispose of concrete construction and demolition waste. One solution is to crush this waste concrete into a usable gradation for new concrete mixes. This not only reduces the amount of waste entering landfills but also alleviates the burden on existing sources of quality natural concrete aggregates. There are too many kinds of waste but here constructions waste will be the priority target that should be solved. It could be managed by several ways such as recycling and reusing the concrete components, and the best choice of these components is the aggregate, because of the ease process of recycle it. In addition, recycled aggregates and normal aggregates were immersed in epoxy resin and put in concrete mixtures with 0%, 5%, 10% and 20% which affected the concrete mixtures properties. The strength of the concrete for both normal and recycled aggregates has increased after immersed the aggregates in epoxy resin. The percentage of water absorption and the coefficient of water permeability decreased with the increasing of the normal and the recycled aggregates immersed in epoxy resin. Generally the tests which have been conducted to the concrete mixtures have a significant results after using the epoxy resin with both normal and recycled aggregates