6,980 research outputs found
Increased human pathogenic potential of Escherichia coli from polymicrobial urinary tract infections in comparison to isolates from monomicrobial culture samples
The current diagnostic standard procedure outlined by the Health Protection Agency for urinary tract infections (UTIs) in clinical laboratories does not report bacteria isolated from samples containing three or more different bacterial species. As a result many UTIs go unreported and untreated, particularly in elderly patients, where polymicrobial UTI samples are especially prevalent. This study reports the presence of the major uropathogenic species in mixed culture urine samples from elderly patients, and of resistance to front-line antibiotics, with potentially increased levels of resistance to ciprofloxacin and trimethoprim. Most importantly, the study highlights that Escherichia coli present in polymicrobial UTI samples are statistically more invasive (P<0.001) in in vitro epithelial cell infection assays than those isolated from monomicrobial culture samples. In summary, the results of this study suggest that the current diagnostic standard procedure for polymicrobial UTI samples needs to be reassessed, and that E. coli present in polymicrobial UTI samples may pose an increased risk to human health
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Roles of Candida albicans Mig1 and Mig2 in glucose repression, pathogenicity traits, and SNF1 essentiality.
Metabolic adaptation is linked to the ability of the opportunistic pathogen Candida albicans to colonize and cause infection in diverse host tissues. One way that C. albicans controls its metabolism is through the glucose repression pathway, where expression of alternative carbon source utilization genes is repressed in the presence of its preferred carbon source, glucose. Here we carry out genetic and gene expression studies that identify transcription factors Mig1 and Mig2 as mediators of glucose repression in C. albicans. The well-studied Mig1/2 orthologs ScMig1/2 mediate glucose repression in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae; our data argue that C. albicans Mig1/2 function similarly as repressors of alternative carbon source utilization genes. However, Mig1/2 functions have several distinctive features in C. albicans. First, Mig1 and Mig2 have more co-equal roles in gene regulation than their S. cerevisiae orthologs. Second, Mig1 is regulated at the level of protein accumulation, more akin to ScMig2 than ScMig1. Third, Mig1 and Mig2 are together required for a unique aspect of C. albicans biology, the expression of several pathogenicity traits. Such Mig1/2-dependent traits include the abilities to form hyphae and biofilm, tolerance of cell wall inhibitors, and ability to damage macrophage-like cells and human endothelial cells. Finally, Mig1 is required for a puzzling feature of C. albicans biology that is not shared with S. cerevisiae: the essentiality of the Snf1 protein kinase, a central eukaryotic carbon metabolism regulator. Our results integrate Mig1 and Mig2 into the C. albicans glucose repression pathway and illuminate connections among carbon control, pathogenicity, and Snf1 essentiality
The Search for Intergalactic Hydrogen Clouds in Voids
I present the results of a search for intergalactic hydrogen clouds in voids.
Clouds are detected by their HI LyA absorption lines in the HST spectra of
low-redshift AGN. The parameter with which the environments of clouds are
characterized is the tidal field, which places a lower limit on the cloud
mass-density which is dynamically stable against disruption. Galaxy redshift
catalogs are used to sum the tidal fields along the lines of sight, sorting
clouds according to tidal field upper, or lower limits. The analytical
methodology employed is designed to detect gas clouds whose expansion following
reionization is restrained by dark matter perturbations. End-products are the
cloud equivalent width distribution functions (EWDF) of catalogs formed by
sorting clouds according to various tidal field upper, or lower limits.
Cumulative EWDFs are steep in voids (S ~ -1.5 \pm 0.2), but flatter in high
tidal field zones (S ~ -0.5 \pm 0.1). Most probable cloud Doppler parameters
are ~30 km/s in voids and ~60 km/s in proximity to galaxies. In voids, the
cumulative line density at low EW (~ 15 mA) is ~ 500 per unit redshift. The
void filling factor is found to be 0.87 <= f_v <= 0.94. The void EWDF is
remarkably uniform over this volume, with a possible tendency for more massive
clouds to be in void centers. The size and nature of the void cloud population
suggested by this study is completely unanticipated by the results of published
3-D simulations, which predict that most clouds are in filamentary structures
around galaxy concentrations, and that very few observable absorbers would lie
in voids. Strategies for modeling this population are briefly discussed.Comment: 21 pages, 19 figures, apjemulate style, to appear in ApJ vol. 57
On stochastic sea of the standard map
Consider a generic one-parameter unfolding of a homoclinic tangency of an
area preserving surface diffeomorphism. We show that for many parameters
(residual subset in an open set approaching the critical value) the
corresponding diffeomorphism has a transitive invariant set of full
Hausdorff dimension. The set is a topological limit of hyperbolic sets
and is accumulated by elliptic islands.
As an application we prove that stochastic sea of the standard map has full
Hausdorff dimension for sufficiently large topologically generic parameters.Comment: 36 pages, 5 figure
Polyelectrolyte Persistence Length: Attractive Effect of Counterion Correlations and Fluctuations
The persistence length of a single, strongly charged, stiff polyelectrolyte
chain is investigated theoretically. Path integral formulation is used to
obtain the effective electrostatic interaction between the monomers. We find
significant deviations from the classical Odijk, Skolnick and Fixman (OSF)
result. An induced attraction between monomers is due to thermal fluctuations
and correlations between bound counterions. The electrostatic persistence
length is found to be smaller than the OSF value and indicates a possible
mechanical instability (collapse) for highly charged polyelectrolytes with
multivalent counterions. In addition, we calculate the amount of condensed
counterions on a slightly bent polyelectrolyte. More counterions are found to
be adsorbed as compared to the Manning condensation on a cylinder.Comment: 5 pages, 1 ps figur
Charge Fluctuation Forces Between Stiff Polyelectrolytes in Salt Solution: Pairwise Summability Re-examined
We formulate low-frequency charge-fluctuation forces between charged
cylinders - parallel or skewed - in salt solution: forces from dipolar van der
Waals fluctuations and those from the correlated monopolar fluctuations of
mobile ions. At high salt concentrations forces are exponentially screened. In
low-salt solutions dipolar energies go as or ; monopolar
energies vary as or , where is the minimal separation
between cylinders. However, pairwise summability of rod-rod forces is easily
violated in low-salt conditions. Perhaps the most important result is not the
derivation of pair potentials but rather the demonstration that some of these
expressions may not be used for the very problems that originally motivated
their derivation.Comment: 8 pages and 1 fig in ps forma
On Hilberg's Law and Its Links with Guiraud's Law
Hilberg (1990) supposed that finite-order excess entropy of a random human
text is proportional to the square root of the text length. Assuming that
Hilberg's hypothesis is true, we derive Guiraud's law, which states that the
number of word types in a text is greater than proportional to the square root
of the text length. Our derivation is based on some mathematical conjecture in
coding theory and on several experiments suggesting that words can be defined
approximately as the nonterminals of the shortest context-free grammar for the
text. Such operational definition of words can be applied even to texts
deprived of spaces, which do not allow for Mandelbrot's ``intermittent
silence'' explanation of Zipf's and Guiraud's laws. In contrast to
Mandelbrot's, our model assumes some probabilistic long-memory effects in human
narration and might be capable of explaining Menzerath's law.Comment: To appear in Journal of Quantitative Linguistic
Fv antibodies to aflatoxin B1 derived from a pre-immunized antibody phage display library system
The production and characterization of recombinant antibodies to aflatoxin B[SUB1] (AFB[SUB1]), a potent mycotoxin and carcinogen is described. The antibody fragments produced were then applied for use in a surface plasmon resonance-based biosensor (BIAcore), which measures biomolecular interactions in 'real-time'. Single chain Fv (scFv) antibodies were generated to aflatoxin B1 from an established phage display system, which incorporated a range of different plasmids for efficient scFv expression. The scFv's were used in the development of a competitive ELISA, and also for the development of surface plasmon resonance (SPR)-based inhibition immunoassays. They were found to be suitable for the detection of AFB[SUB1], in this format, with the assays being sensitive and reproducible
Collapse of Stiff Polyelectrolytes due to Counterion Fluctuations
The effective elasticity of highly charged stiff polyelectrolytes is studied
in the presence of counterions, with and without added salt. The rigid polymer
conformations may become unstable due to an effective attraction induced by
counterion density fluctuations. Instabilities at the longest, or intermediate
length scales may signal collapse to globule, or necklace states, respectively.
In the presence of added-salt, a generalized electrostatic persistence length
is obtained, which has a nontrivial dependence on the Debye screening length.Comment: 4 pages RevTex, 3 ps figures included using epsf, final version as
appeared in PR
Evidence of oxidative stress in young and aged DJ-1-deficient mice
AbstractLoss of DJ-1 function contributes to pathogenesis in Parkinsonâs disease. Here, we investigate the impact of aging and DJ-1 deficiency in transgenic mice. Ventral midbrain from young DJ-1-deficient mice revealed no change in 4-hydroxy-2-nonenal (4-HNE), but HSP60, HSP40 and striatal dopamine turnover were significantly elevated compared to wildtype. In aged mice, the chaperone response observed in wildtype animals was absent from DJ-1-deficient transgenics, and nigral 4-HNE immunoreactivity was enhanced. These changes were concomitant with increased striatal dopamine levels and uptake. Thus, increased oxidants and diminished protein quality control may contribute to nigral oxidative damage with aging in the model
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