Mobile genetic elements associated with blaNDM-1 in Acinetobacter spp. and vibrio cholerae.

NDM-producing bacteria are associated with extensive antimicrobial resistance (AMR). This thesis reports on detailed molecular analysis, including whole genome sequencing, of Acinetobacter spp. and Vibrio cholerae isolates. A study of clinical Acinetobacter baumannii isolates from India, demonstrated spread of a single strain containing blaNDM-1 but with evidence of significant genetic plasticity between isolates. A novel plasmid, pNDM-32, was fully characterised in isolate CHI-32. This contained multiple AMR genes including blaNDM-1 and the aminoglycoside methyltransferase gene armA. A repAci10 replicase gene was identified but no conjugation machinery and the plasmid could not be transferred in conjugation experiments. A single isolate of Acinetobacter bereziniae from India contained plasmid, pNDM-40-1, harbouring blaNDM-1, which was closely related to plasmids from NDM-producing Acinetobacter spp. isolated in China, and was readily transferred into Escherichia coli and Acinetobacter pittii by conjugation. Five blaNDM-1 positive Acinetobacter spp. isolated from a faecal screening study in Pakistan also included three, clonal, Acinetobacter haemolyticus isolates harbouring a similar plasmid. Three environmental V. cholerae strains from India and a blood isolate from a traveller returning to the UK from India were found to include three distantly related strains. 2 isolates of a single strain contained an IncA/C plasmid, pNDM-116-17, harbouring AMR genes including blaNDM-1. In one isolate pNDM-116-17 had become integrated into a chromosomal region containing a SXT-like element. In the other isolates blaNDM-1 and other AMR determinants were localised to a large plasmid, pNDM-116-14, with a novel replicase and a full complement of conjugative transfer genes, and a novel genomic island, SGI-NDM-1. Most previous studies have focused on Enterobacteriaceae. Thecurrent work contributes to an understanding of the full extent of the genetic diversity of blaNDM-1 contexts, and their dissemination. Such knowledge should help to infer factors which contribute to the spread of AMR in bacterial pathogens

Program Corporate Social Responsibility Dalam Perspektif Indeks Kepuasan Publik Di Riau

Program Corporate Social Reponsibility (CSR) merupakan salah satu kebutuhan dan di Indonesia merupakan suatu kewajiban dan ditetapkan melalui Undang-Undang Nomor 40 Tahun 2007 tentang Perseroan Terbatas. Dimana pada pasal 74 menjelaskan bahwa tanggung jawab sosial merupakan suatu kegiatan yang diwajibkan dan dilaksanakan berdasarkan pada kepatutan dan kewajaran sesuai dengan peraturan pemerintahan. Pelaksanaan tanggung jawab sosial dikenal dengan istilah CSR oleh Perusahaan merupakan suatu bentuk komitmen Perusahaan untuk membangun kualitas kehidupan yang lebih baik bersama stakeholders terkait, terutama masyarakat disekitar Perusahaan tersebut berada. Karena peran CSR ternyata saat ini semakin penting bagi masyarakat di sekitar Perusahaan dalam upaya menyeimbangkan pembangunan, baik ekonomi, sosial dan lingkungan. Penelitian ini dilaksanakan secara komprehensif mengenai implementasi dan prioritas program CSR di PT. Pertamina (Persero) RU II Dumai dan PT. Cevron Pasific Indonesia (CPI) di Tapung, Minas dan Rumbai Provinsi Riau. Metode penelitian dilakukan dengan metode campuran (mixed methods) yaitu mengkombinasikan pendekatan kuantitatif dan pendekatan kualitatif. Pengumpulan data dilakukan dengan penyebaran angket, in-dept interview dan observasi terhadap multistakeholders. Hasil penelitian yang ditemukan implementasi program CSR oleh PT. Pertamina (Persero) RU II Dumai dan PT. Cevron Pasific Indonesia (CPI) di Provinsi Riau masih berjalan dengan kurang baik. Sedangkan prioritas program CSR yang dibutuhkan berdasarkan indeks kepuasan publik di PT. Pertamina (Persero) RU II Dumai dan PT. Cevron Pasific Indonesia (CPI) di Tapung, Minas dan Rumbai Provinsi Riau adalah program yang berbasis pemberdayaan ekonomi masyarakat.Kata Kunci: pemberdayaan, program Corporate Social Reponsibility, indeks kepuasan publik. Corporate Social Reponsibility program (CSR) is seen as an urgent thing on social development. Its supported by regulation that stated in Act No. 40 year 2007 about Limited Company. In the article number 74 stated that social responsibility is one among activities that should be conducted by the companies. The companies should have committed for surround people quality of life, in terms of social and economic perspective. The sample of this research covers the implementation of the priority programmes and corporate social responsibility (CSR) PT. Pertamina (Persero) RU II Dumai and PT. Cevron Pacific Indonesia (CPI) at Tapung, Minas and Rumbai Riau Province. Data has been collected by questionnaire, in-depth interview and observation. Results of the study found implementation of programs of corporate social responsibility by PT. Pertamina (Persero) RU II Dumai and PT Cevron Pacific Indonesia (CPI) in Riau Province is still inadequate. The CSR program of the sample have been emphasized on social-economy empowerment

blaNDM-1 is a chimera likely constructed in acinetobacter baumannii

Alignment of DNA sequences found upstream of aphA6 and all blaNDM-1 genes displays 100% identity. This identity continues 19 bp into the blaNDM-1 gene such that the first 6 amino acids of aphA6 and blaNDM-1 are the same. Furthermore, the percent GC content (GC%) of aphA6 is considerably lower than that of blaNDM-1 and the GC% within the blaNDM-1 structural gene changes dramatically after the first 19 bp. This is unequivocal evidence that blaNDM-1 is a chimera

Transferrinfection. A Highly Efficient Way to Express Gene Constructs in Eukaryotic Cells

No abstract available

Write-rationing garbage collection for hybrid memories

Emerging Non-Volatile Memory (NVM) technologies offer high capacity and energy efficiency compared to DRAM, but suffer from limited write endurance and longer latencies. Prior work seeks the best of both technologies by combining DRAM and NVM in hybrid memories to attain low latency, high capacity, energy efficiency, and durability. Coarse-grained hardware and OS optimizations then spread writes out (wear-leveling) and place highly mutated pages in DRAM to extend NVM lifetimes. Unfortunately even with these coarse-grained methods, popular Java applications exact impractical NVM lifetimes of 4 years or less. This paper shows how to make hybrid memories practical, without changing the programming model, by enhancing garbage collection in managed language runtimes. We find object write behaviors offer two opportunities: (1) 70% of writes occur to newly allocated objects, and (2) 2% of objects capture 81% of writes to mature objects. We introduce writerationing garbage collectors that exploit these fine-grained behaviors. They extend NVM lifetimes by placing highly mutated objects in DRAM and read-mostly objects in NVM. We implement two such systems. (1) Kingsguard-nursery places new allocation in DRAM and survivors in NVM, reducing NVM writes by 5x versus NVM only with wear-leveling. (2) Kingsguard-writers (KG-W) places nursery objects in DRAM and survivors in a DRAM observer space. It monitors all mature object writes and moves unwritten mature objects from DRAM to NVM. Because most mature objects are unwritten, KG-W exploits NVM capacity while increasing NVM lifetimes by 11x. It reduces the energy-delay product by 32% over DRAM-only and 29% over NVM-only. This work opens up new avenues for making hybrid memories practical

The genome of the protozoan parasite Cystoisospora suis and a reverse vaccinology approach to identify vaccine candidates

Vaccine development targeting protozoan parasites remains challenging, partly due to the complex interactions between these eukaryotes and the host immune system. Reverse vaccinology is a promising approach for direct screening of genome sequence assemblies for new vaccine candidate proteins. Here, we applied this paradigm to Cystoisospora suis, an apicomplexan parasite that causes enteritis and diarrhea in suckling piglets and economic losses in pig production worldwide. Using Next Generation Sequencing we produced an ∼84 Mb sequence assembly for the C. suis genome, making it the first available reference for the genus Cystoisospora. Then, we derived a manually curated annotation of more than 11,000 protein-coding genes and applied the tool Vacceed to identify 1,168 vaccine candidates by screening the predicted C. suis proteome. To refine the set of candidates, we looked at proteins that are highly expressed in merozoites and specific to apicomplexans. The stringent set of candidates included 220 proteins, among which were 152 proteins with unknown function, 17 surface antigens of the SAG and SRS gene families, 12 proteins of the apicomplexan-specific secretory organelles including AMA1, MIC6, MIC13, ROP6, ROP12, ROP27, ROP32 and three proteins related to cell adhesion. Finally, we demonstrated in vitro the immunogenic potential of a C. suis-specific 42 kDa transmembrane protein, which might constitute an attractive candidate for further testing

Dietary Supplementation with Soluble Plantain Non-Starch Polysaccharides Inhibits Intestinal Invasion of Salmonella Typhimurium in the Chicken

Soluble fibres (non-starch polysaccharides, NSP) from edible plants but particularly plantain banana (Musa spp.), have been shown in vitro and ex vivo to prevent various enteric pathogens from adhering to, or translocating across, the human intestinal epithelium, a property that we have termed contrabiotic. Here we report that dietary plantain fibre prevents invasion of the chicken intestinal mucosa by Salmonella. In vivo experiments were performed with chicks fed from hatch on a pellet diet containing soluble plantain NSP (0 to 200 mg/d) and orally infected with S.Typhimurium 4/74 at 8 d of age. Birds were sacrificed 3, 6 and 10 d post-infection. Bacteria were enumerated from liver, spleen and caecal contents. In vitro studies were performed using chicken caecal crypts and porcine intestinal epithelial cells infected with Salmonella enterica serovars following pre-treatment separately with soluble plantain NSP and acidic or neutral polysaccharide fractions of plantain NSP, each compared with saline vehicle. Bacterial adherence and invasion were assessed by gentamicin protection assay. In vivo dietary supplementation with plantain NSP 50 mg/d reduced invasion by S.Typhimurium, as reflected by viable bacterial counts from splenic tissue, by 98.9% (95% CI, 98.1–99.7; P<0.0001). In vitro studies confirmed that plantain NSP (5–10 mg/ml) inhibited adhesion of S.Typhimurium 4/74 to a porcine epithelial cell-line (73% mean inhibition (95% CI, 64–81); P<0.001) and to primary chick caecal crypts (82% mean inhibition (95% CI, 75–90); P<0.001). Adherence inhibition was shown to be mediated via an effect on the epithelial cells and Ussing chamber experiments with ex-vivo human ileal mucosa showed that this effect was associated with increased short circuit current but no change in electrical resistance. The inhibitory activity of plantain NSP lay mainly within the acidic/pectic (homogalacturonan-rich) component. Supplementation of chick feed with plantain NSP was well tolerated and shows promise as a simple approach for reducing invasive salmonellosis

The effect of carboxylate position on the structure of a metal organic framework derived from cyclotriveratrylene

Two cyclotriveratrylene-based ligands H3L1 and H3L2 have been synthesised using microwave heating and used in the formation of 1 [Zn2(L1)(DMA)2(CH3COO)] and 2 [Zn6(L2)4(DMA)6(H2O)5] (DMA = N,N-dimethylacetamide). 1 displays an unusual trigonal paddlewheel node geometry, while Zn(II) paddlewheels are observed in 2. However the stacking of CTV molecules in 1 is replaced by an uncommon molecular capsule structure in 2