Febre maculosa: isolamento de Rickettsia em amostra de biópsia de pele

A 2 years old child living in an area of the State of São Paulo, known in the past as endemic for rickettsiosis developed clinical evidences of spotted fever after a tick bite. Rickettsiae were isolated from guinea pigs inoculated with a skin homogenate. In sera tested by indirect immunofluorescence with Rickettsia rickettsii standard antigen, IgG specific antibody titers raised from 1:512 in the first sample to 1:2048 in the third one; IgM specific antibody titer was 1:128 in the three samples. Also positive were sera obtained from the inoculated guinea pigs. In the last 20 years no other case of rickettsial spotted fever has been confirmed by isolation of the agent in Brasil. To our knowlwdge, there are no previous reports of isolation of Rickettsiae through inoculation of skin biopsy homogenates.Presença de Rickettsia na pele de doente de Febre Maculosa foi evidenciada por inoculação intraperitoneal em cobaio. O diagnóstico sorológico por imunoflüorescência indireta revelou diferença de título de anticorpos específicos para Rickettsia rickettsii, de 4 vezes entre a 1º e a 3º amostra. Imunoglobulina M (IgM) específica foi detectada nas amostras de sangue, evidência de infecção em atividade ou recente. Foi também detectada a presença de anticorpos específicos para R. rickettsii no soro dos cobaios inoculados

Research Article

The water extract of the fruits of Hyphaene thebaica were given orally to male albino rats for 30 days to evaluate its effect on serum cholesterol, triglycerides, lipoproteins: HDL- LDL & VLDL (high- low and very low density lipoprotein) and apolipoproteins (A-1 & B). Our findings exhibited a highly significant decrease (p < 0. 05) in all parameters except for HDL which showed insignificant decrease when compared to control group. Thus the water extract can reduce hyperlipidemia in nephrotic syndrome and leads to decrease the risk of glomerulosclerosis atherosclerosis and consequently the natural, safe and non-toxic Hyphaene thebaica fruit could be of great merit for use as hypolipidemic drug. Further, the phytochemical analysis of the potent water extract indicated the distribution of 14 polyphenolic compounds to which its activity maybe attributed. Among the isolated compounds tricin 5-Orutinoside, kaempferol 3-O-rutinoside and rhamnazin 3-O-rutinoside were isolated, purified and identified from the fruit for the first time. The structure elucidation was based on 1 H and 13 C NMR