Screening for Bacteremia in Trauma Patients: Traditional Markers Fall Short.

Background: Deranged physiology in trauma complicates the clinical identification of sepsis, resulting in overscreening for bacteremia. No clinical signs or biomarkers accurately diagnose sepsis in this population. Our objective was to evaluate the accuracy of the current criteria used to prompt screening for bacteremia in trauma patients and determine independent predictors of bacteremia.

Mutational analysis of quinolone resistance protein QnrB1.

Alanine substitutions and selected deletions have been used to localize amino acids in QnrB essential for its protective activity. Essential amino acids are found at positions i and i(-2) in the pentapeptide repeat module and in the larger of two loops, where deletion of only a single amino acid compromises activity. Deletion of 10 amino acids at the N terminus is tolerated, but removal of 3 amino acids in the C-terminal dimerization unit destroys activity.

Citrobacter spp. as a source of qnrB Alleles.

qnrB is the most common of the five qnr families and has the greatest number of allelic variants. Almost two-thirds of the qnrB alleles have been reported in Citrobacter spp., and several were shown to be located on the chromosome.