Molecular diversity of Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolates from patients with pulmonary tuberculosis in Mozambique

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Mozambique is one of the countries with the highest burden of tuberculosis (TB) in Sub-Saharan Africa, and information on the predominant genotypes of <it>Mycobacterium tuberculosis </it>circulating in the country are important to better understand the epidemic. This study determined the predominant strain lineages that cause TB in Mozambique.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A total of 445 <it>M. tuberculosis </it>isolates from seven different provinces of Mozambique were characterized by spoligotyping and resulting profiles were compared with the international spoligotyping database SITVIT2.</p> <p>The four most predominant lineages observed were: the Latin-American Mediterranean (LAM, n = 165 or 37%); the East African-Indian (EAI, n = 132 or 29.7%); an evolutionary recent but yet ill-defined T clade, (n = 52 or 11.6%); and the globally-emerging Beijing clone, (n = 31 or 7%). A high spoligotype diversity was found for the EAI, LAM and T lineages.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The TB epidemic in Mozambique is caused by a wide diversity of spoligotypes with predominance of LAM, EAI, T and Beijing lineages.</p

BAFF Mediates Splenic B Cell Response and Antibody Production in Experimental Chagas Disease

Chagas disease, caused by the protozoan Trypanosoma cruzi, is endemic in Central and South America. It affects 20 million people and about 100 million people are at risk of infection in endemic areas. Some cases have been identified in non-endemic countries as a consequence of blood transfusion and organ transplantation. Chagas disease presents three stages of infection. The acute phase appears one to two weeks after infection and includes fever, swelling around the bite site, enlarged lymph glands and spleen, and fatigue. This stage is characterized by circulating parasites and many immunological disturbances including a massive B cell response. In general, the acute episode self-resolves in about 2 months and is followed by a clinically silent indeterminate phase characterized by absence of circulating parasites. In about one-third of the cases, the indeterminate phase evolves into a chronic phase with clinically defined cardiac or digestive disturbances. Current knowledge suggests that the persistence of parasites coupled with an unbalanced immune response sustain inflammatory response in the chronic stage. We believe that an effective treatment for chronic Chagas disease should combine antiparasitic drugs with immunomodulators aimed at reducing inflammation and autoreactive response. Our findings enlighten a new role of BAFF-BAFF-R signaling in parasite infection that partially controls polyclonal B cell response but not parasitespecific class-switched primary effectors B cells

Biomasse vegetali come fonte di energie rinnovabili: trattamenti integrati fisico- chimici e biotecnologici per migliorare l'idrolisi dei polisaccaridi nella produzione di bioetanolo

Dottorato di ricerca in ecologia fondamentale. 8. ciclo. Relatore P. De Leo. Coordinatore S. MarchioriConsiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche - Biblioteca Centrale - P.le Aldo Moro, 7, Rome; Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale - P.za Cavalleggeri, 1, Florence / CNR - Consiglio Nazionale delle RichercheSIGLEITItal

Evaluation of infectious complications and immune recovery following high-dose chemotherapy (HDC) and autologous peripheral blood progenitor cell transplantation (PBPC-T) in 148 breast cancer patients.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: High-dose chemotherapy (HDC) with autologous PBPC-T has been reported to be effective in hematological and in selected solid malignancies. In this setting, infectious complications represent a relevant cause of morbidity. PATIENTS AND METHODS: To ascertain the incidence, types and factors influencing the development of early and late infections, we retrospectively analyzed 148 consecutive breast cancer (BC) patients receiving HDC and PBPC-T, both for primary high-risk BC (pBC) and metastatic disease (mBC). RESULTS: Early infection strongly associated with the occurrence of grade 4 mucositis (p 2 year), mainly involving the naive CD4+ T-cell subset. Conversely, the analysis of the frequency of proliferating T-lymphocyte precursors, specific for antigens expressed by 3 different widespread pathogens, demonstrated that, notwithstanding the delayed recovery of CD4+ cells, many T-lymphocyte functions were within normal range 1 year after PBPC-T. CONCLUSION: Altogether these results show that severe mucositis is associated with early bacterial infections and the infusion of large numbers of T-cells plays a role in controlling late VZV reactivation

Mycobacterium tuberculosis Beijing genotype is associated with HIV infection in Mozambique

CITATION: Viegas, S. O. et al. 2013. Mycobacterium tuberculosis Beijing genotype is associated with HIV infection in Mozambique. PLoS ONE, 8(8): e71999, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0071999.The original publication is available at http://journals.plos.org/plosoneThe Beijing genotype is a lineage of Mycobacterium tuberculosis that is distributed worldwide and responsible for large epidemics, associated with multidrug-resistance. However, its distribution in Africa is less understood due to the lack of data. Our aim was to investigate the prevalence and possible transmission of Beijing strains in Mozambique by a multivariate analysis of genotypic, geographic and demographic data. A total of 543 M. tuberculosis isolates from Mozambique were spoligotyped. Of these, 33 were of the Beijing lineage. The genetic relationship between the Beijing isolates were studied by identification of genomic deletions within some Regions of Difference (RD), Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism (RFLP) and Mycobacterial Interspersed Repetivie Unit – variable number tandem repeat (MIRU-VNTR). Beijing strains from South Africa, representing different sublineages were included as reference strains. The association between Beijing genotype, Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) serology and baseline demographic data was investigated. HIV positive serostatus was significantly (p=0.023) more common in patients with Beijing strains than in patients with non-Beijing strains in a multivariable analysis adjusted for age, sex and province (14 (10.9%) of the 129 HIV positive patients had Beijing strains while 6/141 (4.3%) of HIV negative patients had Beijing strains). The majority of Beijing strains were found in the Southern region of Mozambique, particularly in Maputo City (17%). Only one Beijing strain was drug resistant (multi-drug resistant). By combined use of RD and spoligotyping, three genetic sublineages could be tentatively identified where a distinct group of four isolates had deletion of RD150, a signature of the “sublineage 7” recently emerging in South Africa. The same group was very similar to South African “sublineage 7” by RFLP and MIRU-VNTR, suggesting that this sublineage could have been recently introduced in Mozambique from South Africa, in association with HIV infection.http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0071999Publisher's versio

24 loci MIRU-VNTR dendrogram of Beijing genotype strains from Mozambique and South Africa.

<div><p>The dendrogram includes 87 <i>M</i>. <i>tuberculosis</i> Beijing genotype strains, 30 from Mozambique and 57 from South Africa. Red rectangle indicates sublineage 7 and sublineage C isolates from South Africa and Mozambique respectively.</p> <p>^a Drug resistant isolate</p> <p>^b SIT 190 isolate</p></div

<i>Mycobacterium tuberculosis</i> Beijing Genotype Is Associated with HIV Infection in Mozambique

<div><p>The Beijing genotype is a lineage of <i>Mycobacterium tuberculosis</i> that is distributed worldwide and responsible for large epidemics, associated with multidrug-resistance. However, its distribution in Africa is less understood due to the lack of data. Our aim was to investigate the prevalence and possible transmission of Beijing strains in Mozambique by a multivariate analysis of genotypic, geographic and demographic data. A total of 543 <i>M. tuberculosis</i> isolates from Mozambique were spoligotyped. Of these, 33 were of the Beijing lineage. The genetic relationship between the Beijing isolates were studied by identification of genomic deletions within some Regions of Difference (RD), Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism (RFLP) and Mycobacterial Interspersed Repetivie Unit – variable number tandem repeat (MIRU-VNTR). Beijing strains from South Africa, representing different sublineages were included as reference strains. The association between Beijing genotype, Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) serology and baseline demographic data was investigated. HIV positive serostatus was significantly (p=0.023) more common in patients with Beijing strains than in patients with non-Beijing strains in a multivariable analysis adjusted for age, sex and province (14 (10.9%) of the 129 HIV positive patients had Beijing strains while 6/141 (4.3%) of HIV negative patients had Beijing strains). The majority of Beijing strains were found in the Southern region of Mozambique, particularly in Maputo City (17%). Only one Beijing strain was drug resistant (multi-drug resistant). By combined use of RD and spoligotyping, three genetic sublineages could be tentatively identified where a distinct group of four isolates had deletion of RD150, a signature of the “sublineage 7” recently emerging in South Africa. The same group was very similar to South African “sublineage 7” by RFLP and MIRU-VNTR, suggesting that this sublineage could have been recently introduced in Mozambique from South Africa, in association with HIV infection.</p> </div