Macrophage NFATC2 mediates angiogenic signaling during mycobacterial infection.

During mycobacterial infections, pathogenic mycobacteria manipulate both host immune and stromal cells to establish and maintain a productive infection. In humans, non-human primates, and zebrafish models of infection, pathogenic mycobacteria produce and modify the specialized lipid trehalose 6,6'-dimycolate (TDM) in the bacterial cell envelope to drive host angiogenesis toward the site of forming granulomas, leading to enhanced bacterial growth. Here, we use the zebrafish-Mycobacterium marinum infection model to define the signaling basis of the host angiogenic response.

An ancestral mycobacterial effector promotes dissemination of infection.

The human pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis typically causes lung disease but can also disseminate to other tissues. We identified a M. tuberculosis (Mtb) outbreak presenting with unusually high rates of extrapulmonary dissemination and bone disease.

Reaching the unreachable: providing STI control services to female sex workers via mobile team outreach.

Background: As part of a community-randomized trial of a multicomponent intervention to prevent sexually transmitted infections, we created Mobile Teams (MTs) in ten intervention cities across Peru to improve outreach to female sex workers (FSW) for strengthened STI prevention services.

Methods: Throughout 20 two-month cycles, MTs provided counseling; condoms; screening and specific treatment for Neisseria gonorrhoeae (NG), Chlamydia trachomatis (CT), and vaginal Trichomonas vaginalis (TV) infections; and periodic presumptive metronidazole treatment for vaginal infections.

Results: MTs had 48,207 separate encounters with 24,814 FSW; numbers of sex work venues and of FSW reached increased steadily over several cycles.

Demographic, behavioral, and clinical characteristics of men with nongonococcal urethritis differ by etiology: a case-comparison study.

Background: Nongonococcal urethritis (NGU) is common, yet up to 50% of cases have no defined etiology. The extent to which risk profiles and clinical presentations of pathogen-associated and idiopathic cases differ is largely unknown.

Methods: Urethral swabs and urine specimens were collected from 370 NGU treatment trial participants who sought care at a sexually transmitted disease clinic in Seattle, WA from 2007 to 2009 and had a visible urethral discharge and/or microscopic evidence of urethral inflammation assessed by Gram-stain (≥5 polymorphonuclear leukocytes per high-powered field [PMNs/HPF]).