Sphingosine as a New Antifungal Agent against Candida and Aspergillus spp.

This study investigated whether sphingosine is effective as prophylaxis against Aspergillus spp. and Candida spp. In vitro experiments showed that sphingosine is very efficacious against A. fumigatus and Nakeomyces glabrataa (formerly named C. glabrata). A mouse model of invasive aspergillosis showed that sphingosine exerts a prophylactic effect and that sphingosine-treated animals exhibit a strong survival advantage after infection. Furthermore, mechanistic studies showed that treatment with sphingosine leads to the early depolarization of the mitochondrial membrane potential (Δψm) and the generation of mitochondrial reactive oxygen species and to a release of cytochrome C within minutes, thereby presumably initiating apoptosis. Because of its very good tolerability and ease of application, inhaled sphingosine should be further developed as a possible prophylactic agent against pulmonary aspergillosis among severely immunocompromised patients

Molecular Typing of Salmonella paratyphi B and Salmonella paratyphi C Isolates from Clinical Samples in Iran

Background & Objective: Molecular typing is an important tool in surveillance and outbreak investigations of human Salmonella infections. In this study, Subtyping of Salmonella Paratyphi B and C isolates derived from Iranian patients was carried out by RAPD-PCR to assess the extent of genetic diversity of these isolates. Materials & Methods: Fourteen Salmonella isolates including 6 strains of Salmonella paratyphi B and 8 strains of Salmonella paratyphi C were characterized using RAPD-PCR. Two arbitrary primers, namely OPP-16 and P1254 were used for RAPD analysis and the dendrograms were constructed with NTsys 2.0 computer software. Results: Both primers showed high discriminatory power in differentiating of the related strains of Salmonella. The dendrograms constructed based on RAPD-PCR profiles (with both primers) involving 14 salmonella strains revealed 4 distinct patterns, indicating that these isolates are genetically heterogeneous. Furthermore, a good correlation was not observed between the serotype and the molecular profiles obtained from RAPD data of the Salmonella isolates. Conclusion: The findings of the present study verify the usefulness of RAPD-PCR in characterizing and comparing strains of Salmonella Paratyphi B and C