Antimicrobial susceptibility of some urinary tract clinical isolates to commonly used antibiotics

The antimicrobial susceptibility of urinary tract isolates from pregnant women attending antenatal clinics in various hospitals within Kaduna, Nigeria, was carried out using the disc diffusion method. The patterns of inhibition varied with the concentration of the antibiotic used. Escherichia coli was the most sensitive to ciprofloxacillin (33 mm/5 μg ml-1) and pefloxacin (15 mm/10 μg ml-1). It was resistant to minocycline, nalidixic acid, cefuroxine and cotrimoxazole. Klebsiella spp., Proteus spp. and Staphylococcus spp. were moderately sensitive to ciprofloxacillin (14, 15 and 18 mm/5 μg ml-1) respectively. All the organisms were resistant to minocycline and cefuroxine. Ciprofloxacillin appeared to be the drug of choice for the treatment of urinary tract infection.Keywords: Urinary tract infection, clinical isolates, antibiotic

Complement Activity in the Egg Cytosol of Zebrafish Danio rerio: Evidence for the Defense Role of Maternal Complement Components

Most fish embryos that develop externally are exposed to an environment full of microbes. How they survive microbial attacks are not understood to date. Here we demonstrated that the egg cytosol prepared from the newly fertilized eggs of zebrafish Danio rerio is capable of killing the Gram-negative bacterium Escherichia coli, via in vitro assay system of the complement activity established. All findings indicate that it is the complement system operating via the alternative pathway that is attributable to the bacteriolytic activity. This is the first report providing the evidence for the functional role of the maternal complement components in fish eggs, paving the way for study of maternal immunity in other organisms whose eggs are fertilized in vitro

Functional Characterization of MODY2 Mutations Highlights the Importance of the Fine-Tuning of Glucokinase and Its Role in Glucose Sensing

Glucokinase (GK) acts as a glucose sensor in the pancreatic beta-cell and regulates insulin secretion. Heterozygous mutations in the human GK-encoding GCK gene that reduce the activity index increase the glucose-stimulated insulin secretion threshold and cause familial, mild fasting hyperglycaemia, also known as Maturity Onset Diabetes of the Young type 2 (MODY2). Here we describe the biochemical characterization of five missense GK mutations: p.Ile130Thr, p.Asp205His, p.Gly223Ser, p.His416Arg and p.Ala449Thr. The enzymatic analysis of the corresponding bacterially expressed GST-GK mutant proteins show that all of them impair the kinetic characteristics of the enzyme. In keeping with their position within the protein, mutations p.Ile130Thr, p.Asp205His, p.Gly223Ser, and p.His416Arg strongly decrease the activity index of GK, affecting to one or more kinetic parameters. In contrast, the p.Ala449Thr mutation, which is located in the allosteric activator site, does not affect significantly the activity index of GK, but dramatically modifies the main kinetic parameters responsible for the function of this enzyme as a glucose sensor. The reduced Kcat of the mutant (3.21±0.28 s−1 vs 47.86±2.78 s−1) is balanced by an increased glucose affinity (S0.5 = 1.33±0.08 mM vs 7.86±0.09 mM) and loss of cooperativity for this substrate. We further studied the mechanism by which this mutation impaired GK kinetics by measuring the differential effects of several competitive inhibitors and one allosteric activator on the mutant protein. Our results suggest that this mutation alters the equilibrium between the conformational states of glucokinase and highlights the importance of the fine-tuning of GK and its role in glucose sensing

DaGeRe/peass: Peass 0.3.10

<h2>What's Changed</h2> <ul> <li>Update to Kieker 1.15.4 and KoPeMe 1.3.11</li> <li>Add <code>executableCheckGoals</code> (that might differ for maven)</li> <li>Bump org.apache.commons:commons-lang3 from 3.12.0 to 3.13.0 by @dependabot in https://github.com/DaGeRe/peass/pull/163</li> <li>Bump org.apache.groovy:groovy-astbuilder from 4.0.13 to 4.0.14 by @dependabot in https://github.com/DaGeRe/peass/pull/164</li> <li>Bump info.picocli:picocli from 4.7.4 to 4.7.5 by @dependabot in https://github.com/DaGeRe/peass/pull/165</li> <li>Bump org.apache.groovy:groovy-astbuilder from 4.0.14 to 4.0.15 by @dependabot in https://github.com/DaGeRe/peass/pull/168</li> <li>Bump org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-javadoc-plugin from 3.5.0 to 3.6.0 by @dependabot in https://github.com/DaGeRe/peass/pull/167</li> <li>Bump org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-shade-plugin from 3.5.0 to 3.5.1 by @dependabot in https://github.com/DaGeRe/peass/pull/169</li> <li>Bump org.apache.logging.log4j:log4j-slf4j-impl from 2.20.0 to 2.21.0 by @dependabot in https://github.com/DaGeRe/peass/pull/171</li> <li>Bump org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-surefire-plugin from 3.1.2 to 3.2.1 by @dependabot in https://github.com/DaGeRe/peass/pull/173</li> <li>Bump org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-failsafe-plugin from 3.1.2 to 3.2.1 by @dependabot in https://github.com/DaGeRe/peass/pull/172</li> <li>Bump org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-checkstyle-plugin from 3.3.0 to 3.3.1 by @dependabot in https://github.com/DaGeRe/peass/pull/175</li> <li>Bump org.apache.logging.log4j:log4j-slf4j-impl from 2.21.0 to 2.21.1 by @dependabot in https://github.com/DaGeRe/peass/pull/176</li> <li>Bump org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-javadoc-plugin from 3.6.0 to 3.6.2 by @dependabot in https://github.com/DaGeRe/peass/pull/178</li> <li>Bump org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-pmd-plugin from 3.21.0 to 3.21.2 by @dependabot in https://github.com/DaGeRe/peass/pull/177</li> <li>Bump org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-surefire-plugin from 3.2.1 to 3.2.2 by @dependabot in https://github.com/DaGeRe/peass/pull/180</li> <li>Bump org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-failsafe-plugin from 3.2.1 to 3.2.2 by @dependabot in https://github.com/DaGeRe/peass/pull/179</li> </ul> <p><strong>Full Changelog</strong>: https://github.com/DaGeRe/peass/compare/peass-parent-0.3.9...peass-parent-0.3.10</p&gt

DaGeRe/KoPeMe: KoPeMe 1.3.9

<ul> <li>Update to Kieker 1.15.3</li> <li>Update to JUnit 5.10.1</li> </ul&gt