Elevated antibiotic resistance of Sudanese urinary tract infection bacteria

This study determined the prevalence of urinary tract infections in the Sudanese state of Khartoum and antimicrobial susceptibility pattern of isolated bacterial species. 200 adult patient urine specimens were collected and cultivated to identify the growing bacteria and their susceptibility to antibiotics. 35 % of specimens had significant bacterial growth. The most frequent isolates in this study were E. coli, E. faecalis and S. aureus. Most of the isolates were resistant to many antibiotics; Gram-negative and Gram-positive isolates were resistant to 67 % and 44 % of the examined antibiotics, respectively. E. coli was the most frequent bacterium in the studied samples and it was highly resistant to first-line antibiotics. The most resistant bacteria isolated were Pseudomonas species and the lowest was for S. saprophyticus. The results highlighted the need for knowledge about antibiotic susceptibility profile of the bacteria causing UTI prior to antibiotic prescription in order to ensure optimal treatment

The antiproliferative effect of mulberry (Morus alba L.) plant on hepatocarcinoma cell line HepG2

AbstractThis study aimed to investigate the antiproliferative effect of aqueous and organic extracts of mulberry leaves (Morus Alba L.) on human hepatocellular carcinoma HepG2 cell line. Mulberry leaf extracts were prepared using the solvents: water, 50% aqueous MeOH, and 100% MeOH for different time intervals, while the cells treated with dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) served as control. The effects of aqueous and organic extracts of M. alba L. leaves on HepG2 cell viability, nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB) gene expression, alfa-fetoprotein (AFP), albumin (ALB), gamma-glutamyl transpeptidase (γ-GT) and alkaline phosphatase (ALP) were measured. The results of the cell viability assays showed that water, 50% aqueous MeOH, and 100% MeOH extracts exhibited a highly significant inhibitory effect on HepG2 cell proliferation which was evidenced by a reduction in viable cell count. The results were confirmed by microscopical examination of cell morphology. Furthermore, the mulberry leaf extracts suppressed the activity of NF-κB gene expression of HepG2 cells compared to the control. Also a highly significant depression occurred at the levels of AFP, γ-GT and ALP in HepG2 cells compared with that of controls in a time dependent manner. By contrast, the mulberry leaf extracts increased the secretion of ALB. Therefore, the conclusion was that the organic and aqueous extracts of mulberry leaves inhibit the growth of HepG2 cells through suppressing the activity of NF-κB gene expression and modulate the biochemical markers

Para-infectious brain injury in COVID-19 persists at follow-up despite attenuated cytokine and autoantibody responses

To understand neurological complications of COVID-19 better both acutely and for recovery, we measured markers of brain injury, inflammatory mediators, and autoantibodies in 203 hospitalised participants; 111 with acute sera (1–11 days post-admission) and 92 convalescent sera (56 with COVID-19-associated neurological diagnoses). Here we show that compared to 60 uninfected controls, tTau, GFAP, NfL, and UCH-L1 are increased with COVID-19 infection at acute timepoints and NfL and GFAP are significantly higher in participants with neurological complications. Inflammatory mediators (IL-6, IL-12p40, HGF, M-CSF, CCL2, and IL-1RA) are associated with both altered consciousness and markers of brain injury. Autoantibodies are more common in COVID-19 than controls and some (including against MYL7, UCH-L1, and GRIN3B) are more frequent with altered consciousness. Additionally, convalescent participants with neurological complications show elevated GFAP and NfL, unrelated to attenuated systemic inflammatory mediators and to autoantibody responses. Overall, neurological complications of COVID-19 are associated with evidence of neuroglial injury in both acute and late disease and these correlate with dysregulated innate and adaptive immune responses acutely