Bacterial Infections and Mycoses Commons^™

Chip-Seq And In Vivo Transcriptome Analyses Of The Aspergillus Fumigatus Srebp Srba Reveals A New Regulator Of The Fungal Hypoxia Response And Virulence, Dawoon Chung, Bridget M. Barker, Charles C. Carey, Brittney Merriman

Dartmouth Scholarship

The Aspergillus fumigatus sterol regulatory element binding protein (SREBP) SrbA belongs to the basic Helix-Loop-Helix (bHLH) family of transcription factors and is crucial for antifungal drug resistance and virulence. The latter phenotype is especially striking, as loss of SrbA results in complete loss of virulence in murine models of invasive pulmonary aspergillosis (IPA). How fungal SREBPs mediate fungal virulence is unknown, though it has been suggested that lack of growth in hypoxic conditions accounts for the attenuated virulence. To further understand the role of SrbA in fungal infection site pathobiology, chromatin immunoprecipitation followed by massively parallel DNA sequencing (ChIP-seq) was …

Infectious Diseases, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

Provides information about the role of infectious diseases in the early years of U.S. History, with particular emphasis on how they impacted injuries sustained in military conflict.

Bacteria On Shared Mobile Phones Can Lead To Infections, Roberta Basol, Jean Beckel, Judy Gilsdorf-Gracie, Amy Hilleren-Listerud, Terri Mccaffrey, Sherri Reischl, Pamela Rickbeil, Mary Schimnich, Kirsten Skillings, Mary A. Struffert

Articles

It's now a common practice for hospital-owned mobile phones to be shared among healthcare employees from shift to shift. Despite the benefit of increased, timely communication between caregivers, sharing mobile devices can lead to the spread of healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) if they aren't properly disinfected. The Guidelines for Disinfection and Sterilization in Healthcare Facilities describe "non-critical environmental surfaces" as items that are frequently touched by the hand and may pose a risk of secondary infection transmission.

Application Of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Based Metabolomics To Study The Central Metabolism Of Staphylococci, Bo Zhang

Department of Chemistry: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Metabolomics studies the collection of small molecules (metabolites) involved in enzymatically catalyzed reactions, cell signaling and cellular structure. Perturbations in metabolite concentrations have been used to reflect the activity of corresponding enzymes or proteins. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy is a well-known approach for the structure determination of biological macromolecules. Alternatively, NMR has recently been established as a valuable tool of metabolomics, in which NMR spectral signals correlate small molecules with cellular activities. This has been accomplished through the chemometric analysis of high-throughput one dimensional ¹H spectra (metabolic fingerprinting) and quantitative metabolite identification based on two dimensional ¹H, …

Sirt1 Deletion Leads To Enhanced Inflammation And Aggravates Endotoxin-Induced Acute Kidney Injury, Rong Gao, Jiao Chen, Yuxin Hu, Zhenyu Li, Shuxia Wang, Sreerama Shetty, Jian Fu

Toxicology and Cancer Biology Faculty Publications

Bacterial endotoxin has been known to induce excessive inflammatory responses and acute kidney injury. In the present study, we used a mouse model of endotoxemia to investigate the role of Sirt1 in inflammatory kidney injury. We examined molecular and cellular responses in inducible Sirt1 knockout (Sirt1-/-) mice and wild type littermates (Sirt1+/+) in lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced kidney injury. Our studies demonstrated that Sirt1 deletion caused aggravated kidney injury, which was associated with increased inflammatory responses including elevated pro-inflammatory cytokine production, and increased ICAM-1 and VCAM-1 expression. Inflammatory signaling such as STAT3/ERK phosphorylation and NF-κB activation was markedly elevated in kidney tissues …

Robust System For Infection Control - An Industrial Systems Engineering Approach, Sundaravel Vinay Swarup Achudhan

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Health care delivery in the United States needs improvement. Each year about 98,000 people die as a result of medical errors and the United States is outranked by a number of developed countries in life expectancy, mortality and comorbidity. Healthcare quality is determined based on the quality of the service provided to the patient during their visit. Apart from the traditional problem solving design and development tools used to improve healthcare quality, The National Academy of Engineering and the Institute of Medicine recommend systems engineering principle and systems engineering tools to be used in health care to improve the industry. …

Eculizumab In The Successful Treatment Of Postpartum Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome - A Case Report, Craig A. Mackaness Do, Frederick S. Fleszler Md

Department of Medicine

No abstract provided.

The Gut Reaction: How The Intestinal Microbiota Respond To Citrobacter Rodentium Colonization, Cassandra Black

Senior Honors Theses

The human intestine hosts a diverse community of bacteria known as the intestinal microbiota. The intestinal microbiota have a symbiotic relationship with the host organism. Current research does not clearly define the effect these commensal microorganisms have on the overall maintenance of gastrointestinal health, including protection from the invasion and pathogenesis of foreign bacteria known as pathogens. EHEC O157:H7 causes severe sickness and can be life-threatening, but is difficult to study in vivo. One challenge is that EHEC does not colonize the preferred animal model for human GI studies: the murine intestine. However, the murine pathogen Citrobacter rodentium has …

Age Related Clinical Manifestation Of Acute Bacterial Meningitis In Children, Jabeen Fayyaz, Arshalooz Rehman, Akhter Hamid, Munawar Khursheed, Nukhbha Zia, Asher Feroze

Department of Emergency Medicine

Objective: To determine the signs and symptoms of acute bacterial meningitis (ABM) in different age grops of a paediatric population.

Methods: The retrospective study comprised patients who had been admitted through the Emergency Department of Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi with the relevant diagnosis from September 2009 to September 2011. Case record forms were used to collect data from patient files. Data was collected using variables such as age, gender, presenting complaints, clinical signs and symptoms, computed tomography scan findings and final outcome of patients. There was a minimal risk of breach in patient confidentiality. SPSS 19 was used for …

Vaccine-Preventable Diseases In Travelers, Edith Mirzaian, Jeffery A. Goad, Ani Amloian, Fady Makar

Pharmacy Faculty Articles and Research

Travel to the developing world is increasing among those from developed countries, placing them at risk for vaccine preventable and non-vaccine preventable diseases. From 2007-2011, the GeoSentinel Network reported 737 returned travelers with a vaccine preventable disease. While it is essential that clinicians use vaccines when available for a disease of risk, they should also be aware that the vast majority of diseases acquired by travelers are non-vaccine preventable. The vaccine preventable diseases can be divided into routine travel vaccines, special travel vaccines and routine vaccines used for travel. The routine travel vaccines include Hepatitis A and B, typhoid; special …

Tick-Bourne Pathogens Of Potential Zoonotic Importance In The Southern African Region, Simbarashe Chitanga, Holly Gaff, Samson Mukaratirwa

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

The aim of this communication is to provide preliminary information on the tick-borne pathogens of potential zoonotic importance present in southern Africa, mainly focusing on their geographical distribution and host range, and to identify research gaps. The following tick-borne zoonoses have been reported to occur in southern Africa based mainly on case reports: Crimean–Congo haemorrhagic fever caused by Crimean–Congo haemorrhagic fever virus; ehrlichiosis caused by Ehrlichia ruminantium, Ehrlichia canis and Anaplasma phagocytophilum; babesiosis caused by Babesia microti; relapsing fever caused by Borrelia duttonii and rickettsioses caused by Rickettsia africae, Rickettsia aeschlimannii and Rickettsia conorii. The …

Cytotoxic Clinical Isolates Of Pseudomonas Aeruginosa Identified During The Steroids For Corneal Ulcers Trial Show Elevated Resistance To Fluoroquinolones, Durga S. Borkar, Nisha R. Acharya, Chelsia Leong, Prajna Lalitha, Muthiah Srinivasan, Catherine E. Oldenburg, David J. Evans

Faculty Publications & Research of the TUC College of Pharmacy

Background: To determine the relationship between type three secretion genotype and fluoroquinolone resistance for P. aeruginosa strains isolated from microbial keratitis during the Steroids for Corneal Ulcers Trial (SCUT) and for two laboratory strains, PA103 and PAO1.

Methods: Confirmed P. aeruginosa isolates from the SCUT were divided into exoU(+) or exoU(−). The exoU(+) strains contained the gene encoding ExoU, a powerful phospholipase toxin delivered into host cells by the type three secretion system. Isolates were then assessed for susceptibility to fluoroquinolone, cephalosporin, and aminoglycoside antibiotics using disk diffusion assays. Etest was used to determine the MIC of moxifloxacin …

Simultaneous Bactericidal And Osteogenic Effect Of Nanoparticulate Calcium Phosphate Powders Loaded With Clindamycin On Osteoblasts Infected With Staphylococcus Aureus, Vuk Uskoković, Tejal A. Dasai

Pharmacy Faculty Articles and Research

S aureus internalized by bone cells and shielded from the immune system provides a reservoir of bacteria in recurring osteomyelitis. Its targeting by the antibiotic therapy may thus be more relevant for treating chronic bone infection than eliminating only the pathogens colonizing the bone matrix. Assessed was the combined osteogenic and antibacterial effect of clindamycinloaded calcium phosphate nanoparticles of different monophasic compositions on co-cultures comprising osteoblasts infected with S aureus. Antibiotic-carrying particles were internalized by osteoblasts and minimized the concentration of intracellular bacteria. In vitro treatments of the infected cells, however, could not prevent cell necrosis due to the …

Nanoparticulate Drug Delivery Platforms For Advancing Bone Infection Therapies, Vuk Uskoković, Tejal A. Dasai

Pharmacy Faculty Articles and Research

Introduction—The ongoing surge of resistance of bacterial pathogens to antibiotic therapies and the consistently aging median member of the human race signal an impending increase in the incidence of chronic bone infection. Nanotechnological platforms for local and sustained delivery of therapeutics hold the greatest potential for providing minimally invasive and maximally regenerative therapies for this rare but persistent condition.

Areas covered—Shortcomings of the clinically available treatment options, including poly(methyl methacrylate) beads and calcium sulfate cements, are discussed and their transcending using calcium-phosphate/polymeric nanoparticulate composites is foreseen. Bone is a composite wherein the weakness of each component alone is …