Epidemiology of invasive candidiasis in a surgical intensive care unit: an observational study

Background: Invasive candidiasis (IC) is a frequent and life-threatening infection in critically ill patients. The aim of this study was to evaluate the epidemiology of IC and the antifungal susceptibility of etiological agents in patients admitted to our surgical intensive care unit (SICU) in Spain. Methods: We designed a prospective, observational, single center, population-based study in a SICU. We included all consecutive adult patients (≥18 years old) who had documented IC, either on admission or during their stay, between January 2012 and December 2013. Results: There were a total of 22 episodes of IC in the 1149 patients admitted during the 24-month study. The overall IC incidence was 19.1 cases per 1000 admissions. Thirteen cases of IC (59.1 %) were intra-abdominal candidiasis (IAC) and 9 (40.9 %) were candidemias. All cases of IAC were patients with secondary peritonitis and severe sepsis or septic shock. The overall crude mortality rate was 13.6 %; while, it was 33 % in patients with candidemia. All patients with IAC survived, including one patient with concomitant candidemia. The most common species causing IC was Candida albicans (13; 59.1 %) followed by Candida parapsilosis (5; 22.7 %), and Candida glabrata (2; 9.1 %). There was also one case each (4.5 %) of Candida krusei and Candida tropicalis. Thus, the ratio of non-C. albicans (9) to C. albicans (13) was 1:1.4. There was resistance to fluconazole and itraconazole in 13.6 % of cases. Resistance to other antifungals was uncommon. Conclusions: Candida parapsilosis was the second most common species after C. albicans, indicating the high prevalence of non-C. albicans species in the SICU. Resistance to azoles, particularly fluconazole, should be considered when starting an empirical treatment. Although IAC is a very frequent form of IC in critically ill surgical patients, prompt antifungal therapy and adequate source control appears to lead to a good outcome. However, our results are closely related to our ICU and any generalization must be taken with caution. Therefore, further investigations are needed. Keywords: Intensive care unit, Invasive candidiasis, Candidemia, Antifungal susceptibilit

Marine fish traits follow fast-slow continuum across oceans

A fundamental challenge in ecology is to understand why species are found where they are and predict where they are likely to occur in the future. Trait-based approaches may provide such understanding, because it is the traits and adaptations of species that determine which environments they can inhabit. It is therefore important to identify key traits that determine species distributions and investigate how these traits relate to the environment. Based on scientific bottom-trawl surveys of marine fish abundances and traits of >1,200 species, we investigate trait-environment relationships and project the trait composition of marine fish communities across the continental shelf seas of the Northern hemisphere. We show that traits related to growth, maturation and lifespan respond most strongly to the environment. This is reflected by a pronounced “fast-slow continuum” of fish life-histories, revealing that traits vary with temperature at large spatial scales, but also with depth and seasonality at more local scales. Our findings provide insight into the structure of marine fish communities and suggest that global warming will favour an expansion of fast-living species. Knowledge of the global and local drivers of trait distributions can thus be used to predict future responses of fish communities to environmental change.Postprint2,92

Host range and symptomatology of Pepino mosaic virus strains occurring in Europe

Pepino mosaic virus (PepMV) has caused great concern in the greenhouse tomato industry after it was found causing a new disease in tomato in 1999. The objective of this paper is to investigate alternative hosts and compare important biological characteristics of the three PepMV strains occurring in Europe when tested under different environmental conditions. To this end we compared the infectivity and symptom development of three, well characterized isolates belonging to three different PepMV strains, EU-tom, Ch2 and US1, by inoculating them on tomato, possible alternative host plants in the family Solanaceae and selected test plants. The inoculation experiments were done in 10 countries from south to north in Europe. The importance of alternative hosts among the solanaceous crops and the usefulness of test plants in the biological characterization of PepMV isolates are discussed. Our data for the three strains tested at 10 different European locations with both international and local cultivars showed that eggplant is an alternative host of PepMV. Sweet pepper is not an important host of PepMV, but potato can be infected when the right isolate is matched with a specific cultivar. Nicotiana occidentalis 37B is a useful indicator plant for PepMV studies, since it reacts with a different symptomatology to each one of the PepMV strains.Ravnikar, M.; Blystad, D.; Van Der Vlugt, R.; Alfaro Fernández, AO.; Del Carmen Cordoba, M.; Bese, G.; Hristova, D.... (2015). Host range and symptomatology of Pepino mosaic virus strains occurring in Europe. European Journal of Plant Pathology. 143(1):43-56. doi:10.1007/s10658-015-0664-1S43561431Alfaro-Fernández, A., Córdoba-Sellés, M. C., Herrera-Vásquez, J. A., Cebrián, M. C., & Jordá, C. (2009). Transmission of Pepino mosaic virus by the fungal vector Olpidium virulentus. Journal of Phytopathology, 158, 217–226.Charmichael, D. J., Rey, M. E. C., Naidoo, S., Cook, G., & van Heerden, S. W. (2011). First report of Pepino mosaic virus infecting tomato in South Africa. Plant Disease, 95(6), 767.2.Córdoba, M. C., Martínez-Priego, L., & Jordá, C. (2004). New natural hosts of Pepino mosaic virus in Spain. Plant Disease, 88, 906.Córdoba-Sellés, M. C., García-Rández, A., Alfaro-Fernández, A., & Jordá-Gutiérrez, C. (2007). Seed transmission of pepino mosaic virus and efficacy of tomato seed disinfection treatments. Plant Disease, 91, 1250–1254.Efthimiou, K. E., Gatsios, A. P., Aretakis, K. C., Papayannis, L. C., & Katis, N. I. (2011). First report of Pepino mosaic virus infecting greenhouse cherry tomato in Greece. Plant Disease, 95(1), 78.2.Fakhro, A., von Bargen, S., Bandte, M., Büttner, C., Franken, P., & Schwarz, D. (2011). Susceptibility of different plant species and tomato cultivars to two isolates of Pepino mosaic virus. European Journal of Plant Pathology, 129, 579–590.Gómez, P., Sempere, R. N., Elena, S. F., & Aranda, M. A. (2009). Mixed infections of Pepino mosaic virus strains modulate the evolutionary dynamics of this emergent virus. Journal of Virology, 83, 12378–12387.Hanssen, I. M., Paeleman, A., Wittemans, L., Goen, K., Lievens, B., Bragard, C., Vanachter, A. C. R. C., & Thomma, B. P. H. J. (2008). Genetic characterization of Pepino mosaic virus isolates from Belgian greenhouse tomatoes reveals genetic recombination. European Journal of Plant Pathology, 121, 131–146.Hanssen, I. M., Paeleman, A., Vandewoestijne, E., Van Bergen, L., Bragard, C., Lievens, B., Vanachter, A. C. R. C., & Thomma, B. P. H. J. (2009). Pepino mosaic virus isolates and differential symptomatology in tomato. Plant Pathology, 58, 450–460.Hanssen, I. M., Mumford, R., Blystad, D.-G., Cortez, I., Hasiów-Jaroszewska, B., Hristova, D., Pagán, I., Pereira, A.-M., Peters, J., Pospieszny, H., Ravnikar, M., Stijger, I., Tomassoli, L., Varveri, C., van der Vlugt, R., & Nielsen, S. L. (2010). Seed transmission of Pepino mosaic virus in tomato. European Journal of Plant Pathology, 126, 145–152.Hasiów-Jaroszewska, B., Borodynko, N., Jackowiak, P., Figlerowicz, M., & Pospieszny, H. (2010a). Pepino mosaic virus – a pathogen of tomato crops in Poland: biology, evolution and diagnostics. Journal of Plant Protection Research, 50, 470–476.Hasiów-Jaroszewska, B., Jackowiak, P., Borodynko, N., Figlerowicz, M., & Pospieszny, H. (2010b). Quasispecies nature of Pepino mosaic virus and its evolutionary dynamics. Virus Genes, 41, 260–267.Jeffries, C. J. (1998). FAO/IPGRI technical guidelines for the safe movement of germplasm no. 19. Potato. Food and agriculture organization of the United Nations, Rome/International Plant Genetic Resources Institute, Rome pp 177Jones, R. A. C., Koenig, R., & Lesemann, D. E. (1980). Pepino mosaic virus, a new potexvirus from pepino (Solanum muricatum). Annals of Applied Biology, 94, 61–68.Jordá, C., Lázaro Pérez, A., & Martínez Culebras, P. (2001). First report of Pepino mosaic virus on natural hosts. Plant Disease, 85, 1292.King, A. M. Q., Adams, M. J., Carstens, E. B., Lefkowitz, E. J., (eds). (2012). potexvirus, pp 912–915, in virus taxonomy, classification and nomenclature of viruses; ninth report of the international committee on taxonomy of viruses (p 1327) London, UK: Elsevier Academic PressLing, K.-S., & Zhang, W. (2011). First report of Pepino mosaic virus infecting tomato in Mexico. Plant Disease, 95(8), 1035.Martin, J., & Mousserion, C. (2002). Potato varieties which are sensitive to the tomato strains of Pepino mosaic virus (PepMV). Phytoma Défence Végétaux, 552, 26–28.Mehle, N., Gutierrez-Aguirre, I., Prezelj, N., Delić, D., Vidic, U., & Ravnikar, M. (2014). Survival and transmission of potato virus Y, pepino mosaic virus, and potato spindle tuber viroid in water. Applied and Environmental Microbiology, 80(4), 1455–1462.Moreno-Pérez, M. G., Pagán, I., Aragón-Caballero, L., Cáceres, F., Aurora Fraile, A., & García-Arenal, F. (2014). Ecological and genetic determinants of Pepino mosaic virus emergence. Journal of Virology, 88(6), 3359–3368.Noël, P., Hance, T., & Bragard, C. (2014). Transmission of the pepino mosaic virus by whitefly. European Journal of Plant Pathology, 138, 23–27.Pagan, I., Cordoba-Selles, M. D., Martinez-Priego, L., Fraile, A., Malpica, J. M., Jorda, C., & Garcia-Arenal, F. (2006). Genetic structure of the population of pepino mosaic virus infecting tomato crops in Spain. Phytopathology, 96, 274–279.Papayiannis, L. C., Kokkinos, C. D., & Alfaro-Fernández, A. (2012). Detection, characterization and host range studies of Pepino mosaic virus in Cyprus. European Journal of Plant Pathology, 132, 1–7.Pospieszny, H., Haslow, B., & Borodynko, N. (2008). Characterization of two Polish isolates of Pepino mosaic virus. European Journal of Plant Pathology, 122, 443–445.Salomone, A., & Roggero, P. (2002). 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H. V. Van Regenmortel (Eds.), Encyclopedia of virology (5th ed., pp. 103–108). Wageningen: Oxford Elsevier.Van der Vlugt, R. A. A., Stijger, C. C. M. M., Verhoeven, J. T. J., & Lesemann, D.-E. (2000). First report of Pepino mosaic virus on tomato. Plant Disease, 84, 103.Van der Vlugt, R. A. A., Cuperus, C., Vink, J., Stijger, I. C. M. M., Lesemann, D.-E., Verhoeven, J. T. J., & Roenhorst, J. W. (2002). Identification and characterization of Pepino mosaic potexvirus in tomato. Bulletin EPPO/EPPO Bulletin, 32, 503–508.Verchot-Lubicz, J., Chang-Ming, Y., & Bamunusinghe, D. (2007). Molecular biology of potexviruses: recent advances. Journal of General Virology, 88(6), 1643–1655.Verhoeven, J. T. H. J., van der Vlugt, R., & Roenhorst, J. W. (2003). High similarity between tomato isolates of pepino mosaic virus suggests a common origin. European Journal of Plant Pathology, 109, 419–425.Werkman, A.W., & Sansford, C.E. (2010). Pest risk analysis for pepino mosaic virus for the EU. Deliverable Report 4.3. EU Sixth Framework project PEPEIRA. http:// www.pepeira.com .Wright, D., & Mumford, R. (1999). Pepino mosaic potexvirus (PepMV): first records in tomato in the United Kingdom. Plant disease notice (89th ed.). York, UK: Central Science Laboratory

Nanodiamond-rich layer across three continents consistent with major cosmic impact at 12,800 cal BP

A major cosmic-impact event has been proposed at the onset of the Younger Dryas (YD) cooling episode at ≈12,800 ± 150 years before present, forming the YD Boundary (YDB) layer, distributed over 150 million km2 on four continents. In 24 dated stratigraphic sections in 10 countries of the Northern Hemisphere, the YDB layer contains a clearly defined abundance peak in nanodiamonds (NDs), a major cosmic-impact proxy. Observed ND polytypes include cubic diamonds, lonsdaleite-like crystals, and diamond-like carbon nanoparticles, called n-diamond and i-carbon. The ND abundances in bulk YDB sediments ranged up to ≈500 ppb (mean: 200 ppb) and that in carbon spherules up to ≈3700 ppb (mean: ≈750 ppb); 138 of 205 sediment samples (67%) contained no detectable NDs. Isotopic evidence indicates that YDB NDs were produced from terrestrial carbon, as with other impact diamonds, and were not derived from the impactor itself. The YDB layer is also marked by abundance peaks in other impact-related proxies, including cosmic-impact spherules, carbon spherules (some containing NDs), iridium, osmium, platinum, charcoal, aciniform carbon (soot), and high-temperature melt-glass. This contribution reviews the debate about the presence, abundance, and origin of the concentration peak in YDB NDs.We describe an updated protocol for the extraction and concentration of NDs from sediment, carbon spherules, and ice, and we describe the basis for identification and classification of YDB ND polytypes, using nine analytical approaches. The large body of evidence now obtained about YDB NDs is strongly consistent with an origin by cosmic impact at ≈12,800 cal BP and is inconsistent with formation of YDB NDs by natural terrestrial processes, including wildfires, anthropogenesis, and/or influx of cosmic dust