Publications by authors named "Antoni P Hendrickx"
Article Synopsis
- A study in Romania revealed a growing prevalence of New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase (NDM)-producing Enterobacterales in hospitals, with 355 cases reported from 2018 to 2022.
- Analysis of 74 isolates over nearly two years identified four persistent multi-hospital clusters of these drug-resistant bacteria, demonstrating sustained transmission across multiple regions.
- The findings highlight the urgent need for enhanced infection control measures and improved national surveillance for carbapenem-resistant pathogens in healthcare systems across the EU/EEA.
Article Synopsis
- * A total of 18 carbapenemase variants were identified, predominantly in ST131 clades A and C, with the most common variants being detected in 14 and 12 countries, respectively.
- * The rise in isolates carrying these genes since 2021 highlights a significant public health threat posed by the high-risk ST131 lineage.
Carbapenem-resistant (CRAb) is an important pathogen causing serious nosocomial infections. We describe an outbreak of CRAb in an intensive care unit in the Netherlands in 2021. During an outbreak of non-resistant , while infection control measures were in place, CRAb isolates carrying highly similar and encoding plasmids were isolated from three patients over a period of several months.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackgroundThe war in Ukraine led to migration of Ukrainian people. Early 2022, several European national surveillance systems detected multidrug-resistant (MDR) bacteria related to Ukrainian patients.AimTo investigate the genomic epidemiology of New Delhi metallo-β-lactamase (NDM)-producing from Ukrainian patients among European countries.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWhole genome sequencing data of 874 isolates carrying from 13 European Union/European Economic Area countries between 2012 and June 2022 showed the predominance of sequence types ST167, ST405, ST410, ST361 and ST648, and an increasing frequency of detection. Nearly a third (30.6%) of these isolates were associated with infections and more than half (58.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSince March 2022, there has been an emergence of multidrug-resistant organisms (MDRO) in the Netherlands in patients originating from Ukraine (58 patients, 75 isolates). For about half of these patients, recent hospitalisation in Ukraine was reported. Genomic surveillance revealed that the majority of the MDRO represent globally spread epidemic lineages and that 60% contain New Delhi metallo-β-lactamase (NDM) genes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEnterococcus faecium is a multidrug-resistant (MDR) nosocomial pathogen causing significant morbidity in debilitated patients. New antimicrobials are needed to treat antibiotic-resistant E. faecium infections in hospitalised patients.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPolyphosphate is an inorganic polymer that can potentiate several interactions in the blood coagulation system. Blood platelets contain polyphosphate, and the secretion of platelet-derived polyphosphate has been associated with increased thrombus formation and activation of coagulation factor XII. However, the small polymer size of secreted platelet polyphosphate limits its capacity to activate factor XII in vitro.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCurrently, little is known about the in vivo human immune response against Staphylococcus aureus during a biofilm-associated infection, such as osteomyelitis, and how this relates to protein production in biofilms in vitro. Therefore, we characterized IgG responses in 10 patients with chronic osteomyelitis against 50 proteins of S. aureus, analyzed the presence of these proteins in biofilms of the infecting isolates on polystyrene (PS) and human bone in vitro, and explored the relation between in vivo and in vitro data.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUnlabelled: Vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) have become a major nosocomial threat. Enterococcus faecium is of special concern, as it can easily acquire new antibiotic resistances and is an excellent colonizer of the human intestinal tract. Several clinical studies have explored the potential use of beneficial bacteria to weed out opportunistic pathogens.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUnlabelled: Antimicrobial-resistant and hospital-adapted Enterococcus faecium represents a clinical problem in immunocompromised patients in hospitals worldwide. Understanding the molecular pathogenesis of E. faecium infections may provide novel therapies to treat or prevent infections.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEnterococcus faecium is a commensal of the mammalian gastrointestinal tract, but is also found in non-enteric environments where it can grow between 10 °C and 45 °C. E. faecium has recently emerged as a multi-drug resistant nosocomial pathogen.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUnlabelled: The microbiota of the mammalian gastrointestinal tract is a complex ecosystem of bacterial communities that continuously interact with the mucosal immune system. In a healthy host, the mucosal immune system maintains homeostasis in the intestine and prevents invasion of pathogenic bacteria, a phenomenon termed colonization resistance. Antibiotics create dysbiosis of microbiota, thereby decreasing colonization resistance and facilitating infections caused by antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe lipid II-binding N-terminus of nisin, comprising the so-called A/B ring system, was synthetically modified to provide antibacterially active and proteolytically stable derivatives. A variety of lipids were coupled to the C-terminus of the nisin A/B ring system to generate semisynthetic constructs that display potent inhibition of bacterial growth, with activities approaching that of nisin itself. Most notable was the activity observed against clinically relevant bacterial strains including MRSA and VRE.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe microbiome and the phage meta-genome within the human gut are influenced by antibiotic treatments. Identifying a novel mechanism, here we demonstrate that bacteria use the universal communication molecule AI-2 to induce virulence genes and transfer them via phage release. High concentrations (i.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFor transmission to new hosts, Yersinia pestis, the causative agent of plague, replicates as biofilm in the foregut of fleas that feed on plague-infected animals or humans. Y. pestis biofilm formation has been studied in the rat flea; however, little is known about the cat flea, a species that may bridge zoonotic and anthroponotic plague cycles.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe cell wall of Gram-positive bacteria functions as a surface organelle that continuously interacts with its environment through a plethora of cell wall-associated molecules. Enterococcus faecium is a normal inhabitant of the GI tract of mammals, but has recently become an important etiological agent of hospital-acquired infections in debilitated patients. Insights into the assembly and function of enterococcal cell wall components and their interactions with the host during colonization and infection are essential to explain the worldwide emergence of E.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCloning, expression, purification, crystallization and preliminary crystallographic analysis of the N-terminal domain of serine glutamate repeat A (SgrA) protein from Enterococcus faecium.
Acta Crystallogr Sect F Struct Biol Cryst Commun
April 2013
Serine glutamate repeat A (SgrA) protein is an LPxTG surface adhesin of Enterococcus faecium and is the first bacterial nidogen-binding protein identified to date. It has been suggested that it binds to human nidogen, the extracellular matrix molecule of basal lamina, and plays a key role in the invasion and colonization of eukaryotic host cells. SgrA(28-288), having both a putative ligand-binding A domain and repetitive B domain, was expressed in Escherichia coli and purified using Ni-affinity and hydrophobic interaction chromatography.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSmall molecule inhibitor of lipoteichoic acid synthesis is an antibiotic for Gram-positive bacteria.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A
February 2013
The current epidemic of infections caused by antibiotic-resistant gram-positive bacteria requires the discovery of new drug targets and the development of new therapeutics. Lipoteichoic acid (LTA), a cell wall polymer of gram-positive bacteria, consists of 1,3-polyglycerol-phosphate linked to glycolipid. LTA synthase (LtaS) polymerizes polyglycerol-phosphate from phosphatidylglycerol, a reaction that is essential for the growth of gram-positive bacteria.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPili or fimbriae are recognized as essential virulence determinants assembled on the bacterial surface. Gram-positive bacteria produce covalently linked pilus structures that are distinct from gram-negative counterparts. In this chapter, we describe three commonly used techniques to extract, detect, and visualize pili from gram-positive bacteria: (1) Western blot analysis, (2) Immuno-Electron Microscopy, and (3) Atomic Force Microscopy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBacillus cereus G9241, the causative agent of anthrax-like disease, harbors virulence plasmids encoding anthrax toxins as well as hyaluronic acid (HA) and B. cereus exopolysaccharide (BPS) capsules. B.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Staphylococcus aureus secretes EsxA and EsxB, two small polypeptides of the WXG100 family of proteins. Genetic analyses have shown that production and secretion of EsxA and EsxB require an intact ESAT-6 Secretion System (ESS), a cluster of genes that is conserved in many Firmicutes and encompasses esxA and esxB . Here, we characterize EssB, one of the proteins encoded by the ESS cluster.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLipoteichoic acid (LTA), a glycerol phosphate polymer, is a component of the envelope of Gram-positive bacteria that has hitherto not been identified in Bacillus anthracis, the causative agent of anthrax. LTA synthesis in Staphylococcus aureus and other microbes is catalyzed by the product of the ltaS gene, a membrane protein that polymerizes polyglycerol phosphate from phosphatidyl glycerol. Here we identified four ltaS homologues, designated ltaS1 to -4, in the genome of Bacillus anthracis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBacillus cereus strains elaborate pili on their surface using a mechanism of sortase-mediated cross-linking of major and minor pilus components. Here we used a combination of electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy to visualize these structures. Pili occur as single, double or higher order assemblies of filaments formed from monomers of the major pilin, BcpA, capped by the minor pilin, BcpB.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLactobacillus rhamnosus GG is a human intestinal isolate that has been studied intensively because of its probiotic properties. We have previously shown that L. rhamnosus GG produces proteinaceous pili that earlier had been observed only in Gram-positive pathogens (M.
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