Search results for "General Immunology and Microbiology"
showing 10 items of 784 documents
Using Clicker Training and Social Observation to Teach Rats to Voluntarily Change Cages.
2018
Cage cleaning is a routinely performed husbandry procedure and is known to induce stress in laboratory rats. As stress can have a negative impact on well-being and can affect the comparability and reproducibility of research results, the amount of stress experienced by laboratory animals should be minimized and avoided when possible. Further, the direct contact between the rat and animal caretaker during the cage change bears hygiene risks and therefore possibly negatively impacts the well-being of the rats and the quality of the research. Our protocol aims to improve the routinely performed cage changing procedure. For this reason, we present a feasible protocol that enables rats to learn …
Formin 2 links neuropsychiatric phenotypes at young age to an increased risk for dementia
2017
Age-associated memory decline is due to variable combinations of genetic and environmental risk factors. How these risk factors interact to drive disease onset is currently unknown. Here we begin to elucidate the mechanisms by which post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) at a young age contributes to an increased risk to develop dementia at old age. We show that the actin nucleator Formin 2 (Fmn2) is deregulated in PTSD and in Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients. Young mice lacking the Fmn2 gene exhibit PTSD-like phenotypes and corresponding impairments of synaptic plasticity, while the consolidation of new memories is unaffected. However, Fmn2 mutant mice develop accelerated age-associated me…
Respiratory Tularemia: Francisella Tularensis and Microarray Probe Designing
2016
Background:Francisella tularensis(F. tularensis) is the etiological microorganism for tularemia. There are different forms of tularemia such as respiratory tularemia. Respiratory tularemia is the most severe form of tularemia with a high rate of mortality; if not treated. Therefore, traditional microbiological tools and Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) are not useful for a rapid, reliable, accurate, sensitive and specific diagnosis. But, DNA microarray technology does. DNA microarray technology needs to appropriate microarray probe designing.Objective:The main goal of this original article was to design suitable long oligo microarray probes for detection and identification ofF. tularensis.Me…
Common genes associated with antidepressant response in mouse and man identify key role of glucocorticoid receptor sensitivity.
2017
Response to antidepressant treatment in major depressive disorder (MDD) cannot be predicted currently, leading to uncertainty in medication selection, increasing costs, and prolonged suffering for many patients. Despite tremendous efforts in identifying response-associated genes in large genome-wide association studies, the results have been fairly modest, underlining the need to establish conceptually novel strategies. For the identification of transcriptome signatures that can distinguish between treatment responders and nonresponders, we herein submit a novel animal experimental approach focusing on extreme phenotypes. We utilized the large variance in response to antidepressant treatmen…
Validate or falsify: Lessons learned from a microscopy method claimed to be useful for detecting Borrelia and Babesia organisms in human blood.
2016
A modified microscopy protocol (the LM-method) was used to demonstrate what was interpreted as Borrelia spirochetes and later also Babesia sp., in peripheral blood from patients. The method gained much publicity, but was not validated prior to publication, which became the purpose of this study using appropriate scientific methodology, including a control group.Blood from 21 patients previously interpreted as positive for Borrelia and/or Babesia infection by the LM-method and 41 healthy controls without known history of tick bite were collected, blinded and analysed for these pathogens by microscopy in two laboratories by the LM-method and conventional method, respectively, by PCR methods i…
Invasive candida infections in neonates after major surgery: Current evidence and new directions
2021
Infections represent a serious health problem in neonates. Invasive Candida infections (ICIs) are still a leading cause of mortality and morbidity in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs). Infants hospitalized in NICUs are at high risk of ICIs, because of several risk factors: broad spectrum antibiotic treatments, central catheters and other invasive devices, fungal colonization, and impaired immune responses. In this review we summarize 19 published studies which provide the prevalence of previous surgery in neonates with invasive Candida infections. We also provide an overview of risk factors for ICIs after major surgery, fungal colonization, and innate defense mechanisms against fungi, a…
Erratum for Yahav et al., "New β-Lactam-β-Lactamase Inhibitor Combinations".
2021
The limited armamentarium against drug-resistant Gram-negative bacilli has led to the development of several novel β-lactam–β-lactamase inhibitor combinations (BLBLIs). In this review, we summarize their spectrum of in vitro activities, mechanisms of resistance, and pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamic (PK-PD) characteristics. A summary of available clinical data is provided per drug. Four approved BLBLIs are discussed in detail. All are options for treating multidrug-resistant (MDR) Enterobacterales and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Ceftazidime-avibactam is a potential drug for treating Enterobacterales producing extended-spectrum β-lactamase (ESBL), Klebsiella pneumoniae carbapenemase (KPC), AmpC, a…
Pertussis: Microbiology, Disease, Treatment, and Prevention
2016
SUMMARY Pertussis is a severe respiratory infection caused by Bordetella pertussis , and in 2008, pertussis was associated with an estimated 16 million cases and 195,000 deaths globally. Sizeable outbreaks of pertussis have been reported over the past 5 years, and disease reemergence has been the focus of international attention to develop a deeper understanding of pathogen virulence and genetic evolution of B. pertussis strains. During the past 20 years, the scientific community has recognized pertussis among adults as well as infants and children. Increased recognition that older children and adolescents are at risk for disease and may transmit B. pertussis to younger siblings has undersc…
Immunodominant Cytomegalovirus Epitopes Suppress Subdominant Epitopes in the Generation of High-Avidity CD8 T Cells
2021
CD8+ T-cell responses to pathogens are directed against infected cells that present pathogen-encoded peptides on MHC class-I molecules. Although natural responses are polyclonal, the spectrum of peptides that qualify for epitopes is remarkably small even for pathogens with high coding capacity. Among those few that are successful at all, a hierarchy exists in the magnitude of the response that they elicit in terms of numbers of CD8+ T cells generated. This led to a classification into immunodominant and non-immunodominant or subordinate epitopes, IDEs and non-IDEs, respectively. IDEs are favored in the design of vaccines and are chosen for CD8+ T-cell immunotherapy. Using murine cytomegalov…
The BioFireFilmArray enables point of care diagnostic in neonatal parechovirus meningitis.
2017
Sir,We read with great interest a report in the present journal on the application of broad-range PCR combined with DNA sequencing for detection of bacteria in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) [1]. This m...