Single Nucleotide Polymorphism-Based Real-Time PCR Screening Assay for Rapid Tracking of Bacterial Infection Clusters To Complement Whole-Genome Sequencing Efforts during Outbreak Investigations.

Infection clusters of multidrug-resistant bacteria increase mortality and entail expensive infection control measures. Whereas whole-genome sequencing (WGS) is the current gold standard to confirm infection clusters, PCR-based assays targeting cluster-specific signatures, such as single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) derived from WGS data, are more suitable to initially screen for cluster isolates within large sample sizes. Here, we evaluated four software tools (SeqSphere, RUCS, Gegenees, and Find Differential Primers) regarding their efficiency to find SNPs within WGS data sets that were specific for two bacterial monospecies infection clusters but were absent from a WGS reference data set comprising several hundred diverse genotypes of the same bacterial species.

Impact of ROS-Induced Damage of TCA Cycle Enzymes on Metabolism and Virulence of serovar Typhimurium.

serovar Typhimurium (STM) is exposed to reactive oxygen species (ROS) originating from aerobic respiration, antibiotic treatment, and the oxidative burst occurring inside the -containing vacuole (SCV) within host cells. ROS damage cellular compounds, thereby impairing bacterial viability and inducing cell death. Proteins containing iron-sulfur (Fe-S) clusters are particularly sensitive and become non-functional upon oxidation.

Tumour-infiltrating lymphocytes and prognosis in different subtypes of breast cancer: a pooled analysis of 3771 patients treated with neoadjuvant therapy.

Background: Tumour-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) are predictive for response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) and HER2-positive breast cancer, but their role in luminal breast cancer and the effect of TILs on prognosis in all subtypes is less clear. Here, we assessed the relevance of TILs for chemotherapy response and prognosis in patients with TNBC, HER2-positive breast cancer, and luminal-HER2-negative breast cancer.

Methods: Patients with primary breast cancer who were treated with neoadjuvant combination chemotherapy were included from six randomised trials done by the German Breast Cancer Group.