E. coli Group 1 Capsular Polysaccharide Exportation Nanomachinary as a Plausible Antivirulence Targetin the Perspective of Emerging Antimicrobial Resistance

Bacteria evolving resistance against the action of multiple drugs and its ability to disseminate the multidrug resistance trait(s) across various strains of the same bacteria or different bacterial species impose serious threat to public health. Evolution of such multidrug resistance is due to the fact that, most of the antibiotics target bacterial survival mechanisms which exert selective pressure on the bacteria and aids them to escape from the action of antibiotics. Nonetheless, targeting bacterial virulence strategies such as bacterial surface associated polysaccharides biosynthesis and their surface accumulation mechanisms may be an attractive strategy, as they impose less selective pressure on the bacteria. Capsular polysaccharide (CPS) or K-antigen that is located on the bacterial surface armors bacteria from host immune response. Thus, unencapsulating bacteria would be a good strategy for drug design, besides CPS itself being a good vaccine target, by interfering with CPS biosynthesis and surface assembly pathway. Gram-negative Escherichia coli uses Wzy-polymerase dependent (Groups 1 and 4) and ATP dependent (Groups 1 and 3) pathways for CPS production. Considering E. coli as a case in point, this review explains the structure and functional roles of proteins involved in Group 1 Wzy dependent CPS biosynthesis, surface expression and anchorage in relevance to drug and vaccine developments

Cytological Diagnosis of Primary Cutaneous Nocardiosis in a Known Case of Lepromatous Leprosy, Syphilis and HIV

Nocardiosis is an acute, subacute or chronic bacterial infection caused by a group of aerobic, gram positive and weakly acid fast species of genus Nocardia. Primary Cutaneous Nocardiosis (PCN) is relatively uncommon disease and is usually seen in immunocompetent persons. We report a case of primary cutaneous nocardiosis in a known case of lepromatous leprosy, syphilis and HIV patient who presented with painful swelling over right thigh

The response of nonlinearly loaded antennas to repetitive HPEM excitations as obtained from equivalent circuit models

In this contribution the effects of repetitive pulse excitations on linearly and nonlinearly loaded antennas are studied on the basis of equivalent circuit models. In the known linear case, repetitive pulses can lead to an increase of the amplitudes of oscillations. These oscillations decay, if realistic quality factors are assumed, comparatively quickly. In the considered nonlinear case the effects of repetitive pulses can add up and persist along much larger time scales. This remarkable effect has no equivalent in the linear case.</p

Національно-демократичні об'єднання та політичні партії в Україні кінця XIX - початку XX століття

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) has become increasingly important for the treatment and relief of neurological disorders such as Parkinson's disease, tremor, dystonia and psychiatric illness. As DBS implantations and any other stereotactic and functional surgical procedure require accurate, precise and safe targeting of the brain structure, the technical aids for preoperative planning, intervention and postoperative follow-up have become increasingly important. The aim of this paper was to give and overview, from a biomedical engineering perspective, of a typical implantation procedure and current supporting techniques. Furthermore, emerging technical aids not yet clinically established are presented. This includes the state-of-the-art of neuroimaging and navigation, patient-specific simulation of DBS electric field, optical methods for intracerebral guidance, movement pattern analysis, intraoperative data visualisation and trends related to new stimulation devices. As DBS surgery already today is an important technology intensive domain, an "intuitive visualisation" interface for improving management of these data in relation to surgery is suggested

Validating the role of Gram-negative bacterial Wzi as a water conduction porin and development of a tool to estimate/characterize water conduction property

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a major threat to human health. Multiple studies have shown many bacterial species have developed resistance to major and common antibiotics. It is extremely necessary to explore and validate novel drug targets to design next generation of drug which target bacterial virulence. One such major component of bacterial virulence factor is capsular polysaccharide (CPS) which functions as a mask to evade host immune response and also acts as a barrier for antibiotics. Targeting key components in Wzy dependent CPS biosynthesis and exportation pathway could prove to be valuable drug target as major Gram-negative pathogenic bacteria like Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae & Acinetobacter baumanii employ Wzy dependent pathway. Among seven proteins involved in Wzy pathway, Wzi a outer membrane protein having a dual role as lectin and a water conducting porin, could be a potential drug target. Thus, it is necessary to elucidate the molecular details in functioning of Wzi to exploit it as drug target. Hence, homologs of E.coli Wzi from Klebsiella pneumoniae, Acinetobacter baumanii and Pseudoaltromonas atlantica are modeled to carry out molecular dynamics (MD) simulation to elucidate common and critical aspects in water conduction property. Purification protocol of Wzi is also standardized so as to facilitate the corroboration of water conduction property. Further, a tool has been developed to characterize the water conduction property of Wzi from MD trajectories. This tool can be employed to characterize the solvent conduction in any protein channel

AN INTEGRATIVE APPROACH TO STUDY VIRAL STRUCTURAL PROTEIN CONFORMATIONAL DYNAMICS AND STRUCTURE

Ph.DDOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (FOS