Larva Migration and Eosinophilia in Mice Experimentally In­fected With Gnathostoma spinigerum

Background: Gnathostoma spinigerum causes larva migran in human which is endemic in Southeast Asia. Information regarding larva migration is limited. In this study, we investigated the parasite migra­tion by recovery of worms from the whole body of mouse after oral infection with advanced third stage larvae (AL3). The percentage of blood eosinophils was examined in parallel. Methods: Mice were orally infected with AL3 and histological study of organs was investigated in order to study the migration of AL3, along with blood eosinophilia. Results: At 1 hr post infection (PI), the larvae remained in the stomach, thereafter at 3, 5, 7, 10 and 24 hr PI; they were recovered from various organs including liver, mesentery, esophagus, diaphragm, lung, heart and dorsal fat. At day 15 PI, they were mostly found in muscles (76.47%). The average worm recovery (5 months) was 78.03%. The worms were found in the liver at every time point. Larva encystment was detected. There was a significant difference in blood eosinophils between the 8 larvae- (average 9.33% + 6.25%) and the 15 larvae-infected groups (average 22.66% + 11.03%). Surprisingly, the blood eosinophils (average 19.00% + 2.92%) were not higher in the higher infective dose- group (25 larvae). Conclusion: Liver was involved by G. spinigerum throughout the study. We detected larva encyst­ment which had never been reported in human gnathostomiasis. The highest percentage of eosino­phil occurred during the invasive stage

A comparative study for the inactivation of multidrug resistance bacteria using dielectric barrier discharge and nano-second pulsed plasma

Abstract: Bacteria can be inactivated through various physical and chemical means, and these have always been the focus of extensive research. To further improve the methodology for these ends, two types of plasma systems were investigated: nano-second pulsed plasma (NPP) as liquid discharge plasma and an Argon gas-feeding dielectric barrier discharge (Ar-DBD) as a form of surface plasma. To understand the sterilizing action of these two different plasma sources, we performed experiments with Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) bacteria (wild type) and multidrug resistant bacteria (Penicillum-resistant, Methicillin-resistant and Gentamicin-resistant). We observed that both plasma sources can inactivate both the wild type and multidrug-resistant bacteria to a good extent. Moreover, we observed a change in the surface morphology, gene expression and \u3b2-lactamase activity. Furthermore, we used X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy to investigate the variation in functional groups (C-H/C-C, C-OH and C=O) of the peptidoglycan (PG) resulting from exposure to plasma species. To obtain atomic scale insight in the plasma-cell interactions and support our experimental observations, we have performed molecular dynamics simulations to study the effects of plasma species, such as OH, H2O2, O, O3, as well as O2 and H2O, on the dissociation/formation of above mentioned functional groups in PG