Strongyloides Stercoralis Infection in a Patient with AIDS

Case A 46-year-old male with a past medical history significant for acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) presented with constant, non-radiating epigastric pain, nausea, non-bloody emesis, weakness, and lethargy. He had emigrated from Honduras twenty years prior. The patient denied fever, chills, recent travel, animal exposures, or sick contacts. His medications included efavirenz/emtricitabine/tenofovir, valganciclovir, trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole, fluconazole, and iron

Transactivation of EGFR by LPS induces COX-2 expression in enterocytes

Necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) is the leading cause of gastrointestinal morbidity and mortality in preterm infants. NEC is characterized by an exaggerated inflammatory response to bacterial flora leading to bowel necrosis. Bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS) mediates inflammation through TLR4 activation and is a key molecule in the pathogenesis of NEC. However, LPS also induces cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2), which promotes intestinal barrier restitution through stimulation of intestinal cell survival, proliferation, and migration. Epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) activation prevents experimental NEC and may play a critical role in LPS-stimulated COX-2 production. We hypothesized that EGFR is required for LPS induction of COX-2 expression. Our data show that inhibiting EGFR kinase activity blocks LPS-induced COX-2 expression in small intestinal epithelial cells. LPS induction of COX-2 requires Src-family kinase signaling while LPS transactivation of EGFR requires matrix metalloprotease (MMP) activity. EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors block LPS stimulation of mitogen-activated protein kinase ERK, suggesting an important role of the MAPK/ERK pathway in EGFR-mediated COX-2 expression. LPS stimulates proliferation of IEC-6 cells, but this stimulation is inhibited with either the EGFR kinase inhibitor AG1478, or the selective COX-2 inhibitor Celecoxib. Taken together, these data show that EGFR plays an important role in LPS-induction of COX-2 expression in enterocytes, which may be one mechanism for EGF in inhibition of NEC

Core components for effective infection prevention and control programmes: new WHO evidence-based recommendations

Abstract Health care-associated infections (HAI) are a major public health problem with a significant impact on morbidity, mortality and quality of life. They represent also an important economic burden to health systems worldwide. However, a large proportion of HAI are preventable through effective infection prevention and control (IPC) measures. Improvements in IPC at the national and facility level are critical for the successful containment of antimicrobial resistance and the prevention of HAI, including outbreaks of highly transmissible diseases through high quality care within the context of universal health coverage. Given the limited availability of IPC evidence-based guidance and standards, the World Health Organization (WHO) decided to prioritize the development of global recommendations on the core components of effective IPC programmes both at the national and acute health care facility level, based on systematic literature reviews and expert consensus. The aim of the guideline development process was to identify the evidence and evaluate its quality, consider patient values and preferences, resource implications, and the feasibility and acceptability of the recommendations. As a result, 11 recommendations and three good practice statements are presented here, including a summary of the supporting evidence, and form the substance of a new WHO IPC guideline

The ASAS-SN bright supernova catalogue - III. 2016

This catalogue summarizes information for all supernovae discovered by the All-Sky Automated Survey for SuperNovae (ASAS-SN) and all other bright (mpeak ≤ 17), spectroscopically confirmed supernovae discovered in 2016. We then gather the near-infrared through ultraviolet magnitudes of all host galaxies and the offsets of the supernovae from the centres of their hosts from public data bases. We illustrate the results using a sample that now totals 668 supernovae discovered since 2014 May 1, including the supernovae from our previous catalogues, with type distributions closely matching those of the ideal magnitude limited sample from Li et al. This is the third of a series of yearly papers on bright supernovae and their hosts from the ASAS-SN team

The ASAS-SN bright supernova catalogue - III. 2016

This catalogue summarizes information for all supernovae discovered by the All-Sky Automated Survey for SuperNovae (ASAS-SN) and all other bright (mpeak ≤ 17), spectroscopically confirmed supernovae discovered in 2016. We then gather the near-infrared through ultraviolet magnitudes of all host galaxies and the offsets of the supernovae from the centres of their hosts from public data bases. We illustrate the results using a sample that now totals 668 supernovae discovered since 2014 May 1, including the supernovae from our previous catalogues, with type distributions closely matching those of the ideal magnitude limited sample from Li et al. This is the third of a series of yearly papers on bright supernovae and their hosts from the ASAS-SN team

Role of Occult and Post-acute Phase Replication in Protective Immunity Induced with a Novel Live Attenuated SIV Vaccine

In order to evaluate the role of persisting virus replication during occult phase immunisation in the live attenuated SIV vaccine model, a novel SIVmac239Δnef variant (SIVrtTA) genetically engineered to replicate in the presence of doxycycline was evaluated for its ability to protect against wild-type SIVmac239. Indian rhesus macaques were vaccinated either with SIVrtTA or with SIVmac239Δnef. Doxycycline was withdrawn from 4 of 8 SIVrtTA vaccinates before challenge with wild-type virus. Unvaccinated challenge controls exhibited ~107 peak plasma viral RNA copies/ml persisting beyond the acute phase. Six vaccinates, four SIVmac239Δnef and two SIVrtTA vaccinates exhibited complete protection, defined by lack of wild-type viraemia post-challenge and virus-specific PCR analysis of tissues recovered post-mortem, whereas six SIVrtTA vaccinates were protected from high levels of viraemia. Critically, the complete protection in two SIVrtTA vaccinates was associated with enhanced SIVrtTA replication in the immediate post-acute vaccination period but was independent of doxycycline status at the time of challenge. Mutations were identified in the LTR promoter region and rtTA gene that do not affect doxycycline-control but were associated with enhanced post-acute phase replication in protected vaccinates. High frequencies of total circulating CD8+T effector memory cells and a higher total frequency of SIV-specific CD8+ mono and polyfunctional T cells on the day of wild-type challenge were associated with complete protection but these parameters were not predictive of outcome when assessed 130 days after challenge. Moreover, challenge virus-specific Nef CD8+ polyfunctional T cell responses and antigen were detected in tissues post mortem in completely-protected macaques indicating post-challenge control of infection. Within the parameters of the study design, on-going occult-phase replication may not be absolutely required for protective immunity

Immunization with Single-Cycle SIV Significantly Reduces Viral Loads After an Intravenous Challenge with SIVmac239

Strains of simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) that are limited to a single cycle of infection were evaluated for the ability to elicit protective immunity against wild-type SIVmac239 infection of rhesus macaques by two different vaccine regimens. Six animals were inoculated at 8-week intervals with 6 identical doses consisting of a mixture of three different envelope variants of single-cycle SIV (scSIV). Six additional animals were primed with a mixture of cytoplasmic domain-truncated envelope variants of scSIV and boosted with two doses of vesicular stomatitis virus glycoprotein (VSV G) trans-complemented scSIV. While both regimens elicited detectable virus-specific T cell responses, SIV-specific T cell frequencies were more than 10-fold higher after boosting with VSV G trans-complemented scSIV (VSV G scSIV). Broad T cell recognition of multiple viral antigens and Gag-specific CD4+ T cell responses were also observed after boosting with VSV G scSIV. With the exception of a single animal in the repeated immunization group, all of the animals became infected following an intravenous challenge with SIVmac239. However, significantly lower viral loads and higher memory CD4+ T cell counts were observed in both immunized groups relative to an unvaccinated control group. Indeed, both scSIV immunization regimens resulted in containment of SIVmac239 replication after challenge that was as good as, if not better than, what has been achieved by other non-persisting vaccine vectors that have been evaluated in this challenge model. Nevertheless, the extent of protection afforded by scSIV was not as good as typically conferred by persistent infection with live, attenuated SIV. These observations have potentially important implications to the design of an effective AIDS vaccine, since they suggest that ongoing stimulation of virus-specific immune responses may be essential to achieving the degree of protection afforded by live, attenuated SIV

The First Data Release of CNIa0.02-A Complete Nearby (Redshift <0.02) Sample of Type Ia Supernova Light Curves*

The CNIa0.02 project aims to collect a complete, nearby sample of Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) light curves, and the SNe are volume-limited with host-galaxy redshifts z (host) < 0.02. The main scientific goal is to infer the distributions of key properties (e.g., the luminosity function) of local SNe Ia in a complete and unbiased fashion in order to study SN explosion physics. We spectroscopically classify any SN candidate detected by the All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae (ASAS-SN) that reaches a peak brightness <16.5 mag. Since ASAS-SN scans the full sky and does not target specific galaxies, our target selection is effectively unbiased by host-galaxy properties. We perform multiband photometric observations starting from the time of discovery. In the first data release (DR1), we present the optical light curves obtained for 247 SNe from our project (including 148 SNe in the complete sample), and we derive parameters such as the peak fluxes, Delta m (15), and s (BV)