SWEET Transporters for the Nourishment of Embryonic Tissues during Maize Germination

In maize seed germination, the endosperm and the scutellum nourish the embryo axis. Here, we examined the mRNA relative amount of the SWEET protein family, which could be involved in sugar transport during germination since high [14-C]-glucose and mainly [14-C]-sucrose diffusional uptake were found in embryo tissues. We identified high levels of transcripts for SWEETs in the three phases of the germination process: ZmSWEET4c, ZmSWEET6b, ZmSWEET11, ZmSWEET13a, ZmSWEET13b, ZmSWEET14b and ZmSWEET15a, except at 0 h of imbibition where the abundance of each ZmSWEET was low. Despite the major sucrose (Suc) biosynthesis capacity of the scutellum and the high level of transcripts of the Suc symporter SUT1, Suc was not found to be accumulated; furthermore, in the embryo axis, Suc did not decrease but hexoses increased, suggesting an efficient Suc efflux from the scutellum to nourish the embryo axis. The influx of Glc into the scutellum could be mediated by SWEET4c to take up the large amount of transported sugars due to the late hydrolysis of starch. In addition, sugars regulated the mRNA amount of SWEETs at the embryo axis. These results suggest an important role for SWEETs in transporting Suc and hexoses between the scutellum and the embryo axis, and differences in SWEET transcripts between both tissues might occur because of the different sugar requirements and metabolism

International Nosocomial Infection Control Consortiu (INICC) report, data summary of 43 countries for 2007-2012. Device-associated module

We report the results of an International Nosocomial Infection Control Consortium (INICC) surveillance study from January 2007-December 2012 in 503 intensive care units (ICUs) in Latin America, Asia, Africa, and Europe. During the 6-year study using the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) U.S. National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) definitions for device-associated health care–associated infection (DA-HAI), we collected prospective data from 605,310 patients hospitalized in the INICC's ICUs for an aggregate of 3,338,396 days. Although device utilization in the INICC's ICUs was similar to that reported from ICUs in the U.S. in the CDC's NHSN, rates of device-associated nosocomial infection were higher in the ICUs of the INICC hospitals: the pooled rate of central line–associated bloodstream infection in the INICC's ICUs, 4.9 per 1,000 central line days, is nearly 5-fold higher than the 0.9 per 1,000 central line days reported from comparable U.S. ICUs. The overall rate of ventilator-associated pneumonia was also higher (16.8 vs 1.1 per 1,000 ventilator days) as was the rate of catheter-associated urinary tract infection (5.5 vs 1.3 per 1,000 catheter days). Frequencies of resistance of Pseudomonas isolates to amikacin (42.8% vs 10%) and imipenem (42.4% vs 26.1%) and Klebsiella pneumoniae isolates to ceftazidime (71.2% vs 28.8%) and imipenem (19.6% vs 12.8%) were also higher in the INICC's ICUs compared with the ICUs of the CDC's NHSN