Relevance of Serology for Mycoplasma Pneumoniae Infection Among Children with Persistent Cough

Abstract Background. Mycoplasma pneumoniae is an important cause of upper and lower respiratory tract infections. cough and tracheobronchitis are the commonest features of M. pneumoniae infection but diagnosis based on clinical symptoms that may be due to other respiratory pathogens is impossible. Thus laboratory testing for M. pneumoniae is particularly important. correct and rapid diagnosis of M. pneumoniae infections is of prime importance to introduce appropriate antibiotic treatment. Objectives. evaluation of the incidence of IgM and IgG antibodies specific to M. pneumoniae among children with pneumonia and/or chronic cough. Material and Methods. Serum samples from 148 children with a history of chronic cough (lasting at least one month), recurrent respiratory tract infections, allergic rhinitis, and/or inflammatory changes on X-chest ray. first, all sera were screened for specific anti-M. pneumoniae antibodies using agglutination test following the detection of specific IgM and IgG anti-M. pneumoniae antibodies using immunoenzymatic assays. Results. Out of the 148 serum samples, 57 (38.5%) gave positive screening results. However, the presence of M. pneumoniae-specific IgM and/or IgG antibodies was confirmed by immunoenzymatic assays in only 30 (52.6%) of these 57 positive samples. These results indicated that in as many as 27 (47.4%) out of the 57 serum samples screened, false-positive results occurred. Conclusions. evaluation of acute-and convalescent-phase sera is necessary to make possible accurate interpretation of the serological testing results (Adv Clin Exp Med 2014, 23, 2, 185-190)

Pluronic® F-127 enhances antifungal activity of fluconazole against resistant Candida strains

Candida strains as the most frequent causes of infections, along with their increased drug resistance, pose significant clinical and financial challenges to the healthcare system. Some polymeric excipients were reported to interfere with the multidrug resistance mechanism. Bearing in mind that there are a limited number of marketed products with fluconazole (FLU) for the topical route of administration, Pluronic F-127 (PLX)/FLU formulations were investigated in this work. The aims of this study were to investigate (i) whether PLX-based formulations can increase the susceptibility of resistant Candida strains to FLU, (ii) whether there is a correlation between block polymer concentration and the antifungal efficacy of the FLU-loaded PLX formulations, and (iii) what the potential mode of action of PLX assisting FLU is. The yeast growth inhibition upon incubation with PLX formulations loaded with FLU was statistically significant. The highest efficacy of the azole agent was observed in the presence of 5.0 and 10.0% w/v of PLX. The upregulation of the CDR1/CDR2 genes was detected in the investigated Candida strains, indicating that the efflux of the drug from the fungal cell was the main mechanism of the resistance

Physico-Chemical Properties and Phase Behaviour of Pyrrolidinium-Based Ionic Liquids

A review of the relevant literature on 1-alkyl-1-methylpyrrolidinium-based ionic liquids has been presented. The phase diagrams for the binary systems of {1-ethyl-1-methylpyrrolidinium trifluoromethanesulfonate (triflate) [EMPYR][CF3SO3] + water, or + 1-butanol} and for the binary systems of {1-propyl-1-methylpyrrolidinium trifluoromethanesulfonate (triflate) [PMPYR][CF3SO3] + water, or + an alcohol (1-butanol, 1-hexanol, 1-octanol, 1-decanol)} have been determined at atmospheric pressure using a dynamic method. The influence of alcohol chain length was discussed for the [PMPYR][CF3SO3]. A systematic decrease in the solubility was observed with an increase of the alkyl chain length of an alcohol. (Solid + liquid) phase equilibria with complete miscibility in the liquid phase region were observed for the systems involving water and alcohols. The solubility of the ionic liquid increases as the alkyl chain length on the pyrrolidinium cation increases. The correlation of the experimental data has been carried out using the Wilson, UNIQUAC and the NRTL equations. The phase diagrams reported here have been compared to the systems published earlier with the 1-alkyl-1-methylpyrrolidinium-based ionic liquids. The influence of the cation and anion on the phase behaviour has been discussed. The basic thermal properties of pure ILs, i.e., melting temperature and the enthalpy of fusion, the solid-solid phase transition temperature and enthalpy have been measured using a differential scanning microcalorimetry technique

A Machine-Learning-Based Approach to Prediction of Biogeographic Ancestry within Europe

Data obtained with the use of massive parallel sequencing (MPS) can be valuable in population genetics studies. In particular, such data harbor the potential for distinguishing samples from different populations, especially from those coming from adjacent populations of common origin. Machine learning (ML) techniques seem to be especially well suited for analyzing large datasets obtained using MPS. The Slavic populations constitute about a third of the population of Europe and inhabit a large area of the continent, while being relatively closely related in population genetics terms. In this proof-of-concept study, various ML techniques were used to classify DNA samples from Slavic and non-Slavic individuals. The primary objective of this study was to empirically evaluate the feasibility of discerning the genetic provenance of individuals of Slavic descent who exhibit genetic similarity, with the overarching goal of categorizing DNA specimens derived from diverse Slavic population representatives. Raw sequencing data were pre-processed, to obtain a 1200 character-long binary vector. A total of three classifiers were used—Random Forest, Support Vector Machine (SVM), and XGBoost. The most-promising results were obtained using SVM with a linear kernel, with 99.9% accuracy and F1-scores of 0.9846–1.000 for all classes