Staphylococcus aureus in the oral cavity: a three-year retrospective analysis of clinical laboratory data

OBJECTIVE: A retrospective analysis of laboratory data to investigate the isolation of Staphylococcus aureus from the oral cavity and facial area in specimens submitted to a regional diagnostic oral microbiology laboratory. METHODS: A hand search of laboratory records for a three-year period (1998-2000) was performed for specimens submitted to the regional diagnostic oral microbiology laboratory based at Glasgow Dental Hospital and School. Data were collected from forms where S. aureus was isolated. These data included demographics, referral source, specimen type, methicillin susceptibility and clinical details. RESULTS: For the period 1998-2000, there were 5,005 specimens submitted to the laboratory. S. aureus was isolated from 1,017 specimens, of which 967 (95%) were sensitive to methicillin (MSSA) and 50 (5%) were resistant to methicillin (MRSA). The 1,017 specimens were provided from 615 patients. MRSA was isolated from 37 (6%) of patients. There was an increasing incidence of S. aureus with age, particularly in the greater than 70 years age group. The most common specimen from which MSSA was isolated was an oral rinse (38%) whilst for MRSA isolates this was a tongue swab (28%). The clinical condition most commonly reported for MSSA isolates was angular cheilitis (22%). Erythema, swelling, pain or burning of the oral mucosa was the clinical condition most commonly reported for MRSA isolates (16%). Patients from whom the MSSA isolates were recovered were most commonly (55%) seen in the oral medicine clinic at the dental hospital, whilst patients with MRSA were more commonly seen in primary care settings such as nursing homes, hospices and general dental practice (51%). CONCLUSION: In line with more recent surveys, this retrospective study suggests that S. aureus may be a more frequent isolate from the oral cavity than hitherto suspected. A small proportion of the S. aureus isolates were MRSA. There were insufficient data available to determine whether the S. aureus isolates were colonising or infecting the oral cavity. However, the role of S. aureus in several diseases of the oral mucosa merits further investigation

Control of Emi2 activity and stability through Mos-mediated recruitment of PP2A.

Before fertilization, vertebrate eggs are arrested in meiosis II by cytostatic factor (CSF), which holds the anaphase-promoting complex (APC) in an inactive state. It was recently reported that Mos, an integral component of CSF, acts in part by promoting the Rsk-mediated phosphorylation of the APC inhibitor Emi2/Erp1. We report here that Rsk phosphorylation of Emi2 promotes its interaction with the protein phosphatase PP2A. Emi2 residues adjacent to the Rsk phosphorylation site were important for PP2A binding. An Emi2 mutant that retained Rsk phosphorylation but lacked PP2A binding could not be modulated by Mos. PP2A bound to Emi2 acted on two distinct clusters of sites phosphorylated by Cdc2, one responsible for modulating its stability during CSF arrest and one that controls binding to the APC. These findings provide a molecular mechanism for Mos action in promoting CSF arrest and also define an unusual mechanism, whereby protein phosphorylation recruits a phosphatase for dephosphorylation of distinct sites phosphorylated by another kinase

Leaf-applied sodium chloride promotes cadmium accumulation in durum wheat grain

Cadmium (Cd) accumulation in durum wheat grain is a growing concern. Among the factors affecting Cd accumulation in plants, soil chloride (Cl) concentration plays a critical role. The effect of leaf NaCl application on grain Cd was studied in greenhouse-grown durum wheat (Triticum turgidum L. durum, cv. Balcali-2000) by immersing (10 s) intact flag leaves into Cd and/or NaCl-containing solutions for 14 times during heading and dough stages. Immersing flag leaves in solutions containing increasing amount of Cd resulted in substantial increases in grain Cd concentration. Adding NaCl alone or in combination with the Cd-containing immersion solution promoted accumulation of Cd in the grains, by up to 41%. In contrast, Zn concentrations of grains were not affected or even decreased by the NaCl treatments. This is likely due to the effect of Cl complexing Cd and reducing positive charge on the metal ion, an effect that is much smaller for Zn. Charge reduction or removal (CdCl2 0 species) would increase the diffusivity/lipophilicity of Cd and enhance its capability to penetrate the leaf epidermis and across membranes. Of even more significance to human health was the ability of Cl alone to penetrate leaf tissue and mobilize and enhance shoot Cd transfer to grains, yet reducing or not affecting Zn transfer

ARID3B: A novel regulator of the Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus lytic cycle

Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) is the causative agent of commonly fatal malignancies of immunocompromised individuals, including primary effusion lymphoma (PEL) and Kaposi's sarcoma (KS). A hallmark of all herpesviruses is their biphasic life cycle—viral latency and the productive lytic cycle—and it is well established that reactivation of the KSHV lytic cycle is associated with KS pathogenesis. Therefore, a thorough appreciation of the mechanisms that govern reactivation is required to better understand disease progression. The viral protein replication and transcription activator (RTA) is the KSHV lytic switch protein due to its ability to drive the expression of various lytic genes, leading to reactivation of the entire lytic cycle. While the mechanisms for activating lytic gene expression have received much attention, how RTA impacts cellular function is less well understood. To address this, we developed a cell line with doxycycline-inducible RTA expression and applied stable isotope labeling of amino acids in cell culture (SILAC)-based quantitative proteomics. Using this methodology, we have identified a novel cellular protein (AT-rich interacting domain containing 3B [ARID3B]) whose expression was enhanced by RTA and that relocalized to replication compartments upon lytic reactivation. We also show that small interfering RNA (siRNA) knockdown or overexpression of ARID3B led to an enhancement or inhibition of lytic reactivation, respectively. Furthermore, DNA affinity and chromatin immunoprecipitation assays demonstrated that ARID3B specifically interacts with A/T-rich elements in the KSHV origin of lytic replication (oriLyt), and this was dependent on lytic cycle reactivation. Therefore, we have identified a novel cellular protein whose expression is enhanced by KSHV RTA with the ability to inhibit KSHV reactivation

Video enhancement using adaptive spatio-temporal connective filter and piecewise mapping

This paper presents a novel video enhancement system based on an adaptive spatio-temporal connective (ASTC) noise filter and an adaptive piecewise mapping function (APMF). For ill-exposed videos or those with much noise, we first introduce a novel local image statistic to identify impulse noise pixels, and then incorporate it into the classical bilateral filter to form ASTC, aiming to reduce the mixture of the most two common types of noises - Gaussian and impulse noises in spatial and temporal directions. After noise removal, we enhance the video contrast with APMF based on the statistical information of frame segmentation results. The experiment results demonstrate that, for diverse low-quality videos corrupted by mixed noise, underexposure, overexposure, or any mixture of the above, the proposed system can automatically produce satisfactory results

Area-level deprivation and adiposity in children: is the relationship linear?

OBJECTIVE: It has been suggested that childhood obesity is inversely associated with deprivation, such that the prevalence is higher in more deprived groups. However, comparatively few studies actually use an area-level measure of deprivation, limiting the scope to assess trends in the association with obesity for this indicator. Furthermore, most assume a linear relationship. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate associations between area-level deprivation and three measures of adiposity in children: body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC) and waist-to-height ratio (WHtR). DESIGN: This is a cross-sectional study in which data were collected on three occasions a year apart (2005-2007). SUBJECTS: Data were available for 13,333 children, typically aged 11-12 years, from 37 schools and 542 lower super-output areas (LSOAs). MEASURES: Stature, mass and WC. Obesity was defined as a BMI and WC exceeding the 95th centile according to British reference data. WHtR exceeding 0.5 defined obesity. The Index of Multiple Deprivation affecting children (IDACI) was used to determine area-level deprivation. RESULTS: Considerable differences in the prevalence of obesity exist between the three different measures. However, for all measures of adiposity the highest probability of being classified as obese is in the middle of the IDACI range. This relationship is more marked in girls, such that the probability of being obese for girls living in areas at the two extremes of deprivation is around half that at the peak, occurring in the middle. CONCLUSION: These data confirm the high prevalence of obesity in children and suggest that the relationship between obesity and residential area-level deprivation is not linear. This is contrary to the 'deprivation theory' and questions the current understanding and interpretation of the relationship between obesity and deprivation in children. These results could help make informed decisions at the local level

Microbial catabolic activities are naturally selected by metabolic energy harvest rate

The fundamental trade-off between yield and rate of energy harvest per unit of substrate has been largely discussed as a main characteristic for microbial established cooperation or competition. In this study, this point is addressed by developing a generalized model that simulates competition between existing and not experimentally reported microbial catabolic activities defined only based on well-known biochemical pathways. No specific microbial physiological adaptations are considered, growth yield is calculated coupled to catabolism energetics and a common maximum biomass-specific catabolism rate (expressed as electron transfer rate) is assumed for all microbial groups. Under this approach, successful microbial metabolisms are predicted in line with experimental observations under the hypothesis of maximum energy harvest rate. Two microbial ecosystems, typically found in wastewater treatment plants, are simulated, namely: (i) the anaerobic fermentation of glucose and (ii) the oxidation and reduction of nitrogen under aerobic autotrophic (nitrification) and anoxic heterotrophic and autotrophic (denitrification) conditions. The experimentally observed cross feeding in glucose fermentation, through multiple intermediate fermentation pathways, towards ultimately methane and carbon dioxide is predicted. Analogously, two-stage nitrification (by ammonium and nitrite oxidizers) is predicted as prevailing over nitrification in one stage. Conversely, denitrification is predicted in one stage (by denitrifiers) as well as anammox (anaerobic ammonium oxidation). The model results suggest that these observations are a direct consequence of the different energy yields per electron transferred at the different steps of the pathways. Overall, our results theoretically support the hypothesis that successful microbial catabolic activities are selected by an overall maximum energy harvest rate

The Gluonic Field of a Heavy Quark in Conformal Field Theories at Strong Coupling

We determine the gluonic field configuration sourced by a heavy quark undergoing arbitrary motion in N=4 super-Yang-Mills at strong coupling and large number of colors. More specifically, we compute the expectation value of the operator tr[F^2+...] in the presence of such a quark, by means of the AdS/CFT correspondence. Our results for this observable show that signals propagate without temporal broadening, just as was found for the expectation value of the energy density in recent work by Hatta et al. We attempt to shed some additional light on the origin of this feature, and propose a different interpretation for its physical significance. As an application of our general results, we examine when the quark undergoes oscillatory motion, uniform circular motion, and uniform acceleration. Via the AdS/CFT correspondence, all of our results are pertinent to any conformal field theory in 3+1 dimensions with a dual gravity formulation.Comment: 1+38 pages, 16 eps figures; v2: completed affiliation; v3: corrected typo, version to appear in JHE

Thrombosis Is Reduced by Inhibition of COX-1, but Unaffected by Inhibition of COX-2, in an Acute Model of Platelet Activation in the Mouse

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