60 research outputs found
Legionella pneumophila serogroup 3 pneumonia in a patient with low-grade 4 non-Hodgkin lymphoma: a case report
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Introduction</p> <p>Nosocomial legionellosis has generally been described in immunodepressed patients, but <it>Legionella pneumophila </it>serogroup 3 has rarely been identified as the causative agent.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>We report the case of nosocomial <it>L. pneumophila </it>serogroup 3 pneumonia in a 70-year-old Caucasian man with non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Diagnosis was carried out by culture and real-time polymerase chain reaction of bronchoalveolar lavage fluid. The results of a urinary antigen test were negative. A hospital environmental investigation revealed that the hospital water system was highly colonized by <it>L. pneumophila </it>serogroups 3, 4, and 8. The hospital team involved in the prevention of infections was informed, long-term control measures to reduce the environmental bacterial load were adopted, and clinical monitoring of legionellosis occurrence in high-risk patients was performed. No further cases of <it>Legionella </it>pneumonia have been observed so far.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>In this report, we describe a case of legionellosis caused by <it>L. pneumophila </it>serogroup 3, which is not usually a causative agent of nosocomial infection. Our research confirms the importance of carrying out cultures of respiratory secretions to diagnose legionellosis and highlights the limited value of the urinary antigen test for hospital infections, especially in immunocompromised patients. It also indicates that, to reduce the bacterial load and prevent nosocomial legionellosis, appropriate control measures should be implemented with systematic monitoring of hospital water systems.</p
Generalized Poisson Summation Formulas for Continuous Functions of Polynomial Growth
The Poisson summation formula (PSF) describes the equivalence between the sampling of an analog signal and the periodization of its frequency spectrum. In engineering textbooks, the PSF is usually stated formally without explicit conditions on the signal for the formula to hold. By contrast, in the mathematics literature, the PSF is commonly stated and proven in the pointwise sense for various types of signals. This assumption is, however, too restrictive for many signal-processing tasks that demand the sampling of possibly growing signals. In this paper, we present two generalized versions of the PSF for d-dimensional signals of polynomial growth. In the first generalization, we show that the PSF holds in the space of tempered distributions for every continuous and polynomially growing signal. In the second generalization, the PSF holds in a particular negative-order Sobolev space if we further require that dâ2 + Δ derivatives of the signal are bounded by some polynomial in the sense
Effect of cholesterol on the dipole potential of lipid membranes
The membrane dipole potential, Ïd, is an electrical potential difference with a value typically in the range 150 â 350 mV (positive in the membrane interior) which is located in the lipid headgroup region of the membrane, between the linkage of the hydrocarbon chains to the phospholipid glycerol backbone and the adjacent aqueous solution. At its physiological level in animal plasma membranes (up to 50 mol%), cholesterol makes a significant contribution to Ïd of approximately 65 mV; the rest arising from other lipid components of the membrane, in particular phospholipids. Via its effect on Ïd, cholesterol may modulate the activity of membrane proteins. This could occur through preferential stabilization of protein conformational states. Based on its effect on Ïd, cholesterol would be expected to favour protein conformations associated with a small local hydrophobic membrane thickness. Via its membrane condensing effect, which also produces an increase in Ïd, cholesterol could further modulate interactions of polybasic cytoplasmic extensions of membrane proteins, in particular P-type ATPases, with anionic lipid headgroups on the membrane surface, thus leading to enhanced conformational stabilization effects and changes to ion pumping activity.Australian Research Counci
The restorative role of annexin A1 at the bloodâbrain barrier
Annexin A1 is a potent anti-inflammatory molecule that has been extensively studied in the peripheral immune
system, but has not as yet been exploited as a therapeutic target/agent. In the last decade, we have undertaken the
study of this molecule in the central nervous system (CNS), focusing particularly on the primary interface between the
peripheral body and CNS: the bloodâbrain barrier. In this review, we provide an overview of the role of this molecule
in the brain, with a particular emphasis on its functions in the endothelium of the bloodâbrain barrier, and the protective
actions the molecule may exert in neuroinflammatory, neurovascular and metabolic disease. We focus on the
possible new therapeutic avenues opened up by an increased understanding of the role of annexin A1 in the CNS
vasculature, and its potential for repairing bloodâbrain barrier damage in disease and aging
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