Integrated Approaches of Prevention and Medicine for Dealing with Central Nervous System Brucellosis: A Case from a Non-Epidemic Area - China, 2023.

What Is Already Known About This Topic?: Brucellosis of the central nervous system (CNS) is rare and frequently fatal, often being overlooked or misdiagnosed.

What Is Added By This Report?: In April 2023, the Jinan CDC identified a case of CNS brucellosis in a 54-year-old woman through cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) culture. Upon confirming the diagnosis of brucellosis, the Jinan CDC immediately informed Qilu Hospital of Shandong University, to which the patient had been transferred, and she was subsequently tracked and successfully treated.

Ruxolitinib plus standard of care in severe hospitalized adults with severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome (SFTS): an exploratory, single-arm trial.

Background: Severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome (SFTS) is an emerging tick-borne infectious disease, and its morbidity and mortality are increasing. At present, there is no specific therapy available. An exacerbated IFN-I response and cytokine storm are related to the mortality of patients with SFTS.

Comparison of metagenomic next-generation sequencing and conventional culture for the diagnostic performance in febrile patients with suspected infections.

Background: Timely and accurate identification of pathogens is crucial for appropriate treatment and prognosis of infectious diseases. As an increasingly popular pathogen detection method, the performance of metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS) in detecting pathogens in febrile patients with suspected infection requires further exploration.

Methods: This study included 368 febrile patients with suspected infections who were admitted to the Infectious Disease Department of Qilu Hospital, Shandong University between January 5, 2021 and April 14, 2023.

The presence of foci of infection in China.

China is not considered as an endemic area of , so there is no routine clinical way to diagnose this infection. This study aims to determine whether 2 febrile patients who had a tick bite in East China were indeed infected with The citrate synthase gene () was amplified with universal rickettsial primers by real-time fluorescent PCR from the patients' blood samples. Nested PCR was used to amplify the outer membrane protein A gene () for positive specimens.

Disseminated Talaromyces marneffei infection associated with haemophagocytic syndrome in an HIV-negative patient in northern China: a case report.

Background: Talaromyces marneffei is endemic to eastern India, Southeast Asia, and Guangdong and Guangxi provinces in China. It is common in immunocompromised individuals, especially in HIV-infected patients.

Case Presentation: A 66-year-old male who had a history of hypertension and resided in Shandong Province (Northern China) was admitted for recurrent fever for one month.

Metagenomic surveillance in Jinan, China, reveals serum microbiome and biochemistry features in fever of unknown origin (FUO) patients.

Here we aim to build up a metagenomics-centered surveillance on the infectious microbiome showing in the fever of unknown origin (FUO) patients. We collected venous blood, bronchoalveolar lavage fluid, cerebrospinal fluid, tissue block, sputum, bone marrow biopsy, and purulent liquid samples from 123 patients. Metagenomic sequencing (mNGS) for both DNA and RNA sequences was performed to profile the total pathogenic microbiome in the samples.

Evaluating the efficacy of serological testing of clinical specimens collected from patients with suspected brucellosis.

Background: This study aims to evaluate the efficacy of the standard agglutination test (SAT), the Brucellacapt test and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) in clinical specimens collected from patients with suspected brucellosis.

Methods: A prospective study was conducted from December 2020 to December 2021. Brucellosis was diagnosed on the basis of clinical evidence, and confirmed by isolation of Brucella or a four-fold rise in SAT titer.

Case Report: Suspected Case of -Associated Immune Reconstitution Inflammatory Syndrome.

Human brucellosis is one of the most prevalent zoonoses. There are many similarities between the pathogenesis of (MTB) infection and that of brucellosis. Immune reconstitution inflammatory syndrome (IRIS) may occur during the treatment of MTB infection, but it has not been reported in brucellosis cases thus far.

The natural logarithm of zinc-α2-glycoprotein/HOMA-IR is a better predictor of insulin sensitivity than the product of triglycerides and glucose and the other lipid ratios.

Aim: The euglycemic-hyperinsulinemic clamp (EHC) is not available in most clinical settings and is costly, time consuming and invasive, and requires trained staff. Therefore, an accessible and inexpensive test to identify insulin resistance (IR) is needed. The aim of this study is to assess whether zinc-α2-glycoprotein (ZAG) index [Ln ZAG/homeostasis model assessment of IR (HOMA-IR)] is a better surrogate index for estimating IR or metabolic syndrome (MetS) compared with other surrogate indices.

Overexpression of Abl2 predicts poor prognosis in hepatocellular carcinomas and is associated with cancer cell migration and invasion.

Introduction: Abl2 nonreceptor tyrosine kinase (Arg, c-abl oncogene 2) has recently been identified as being recurrently amplified at DNA levels and overexpressed at mRNA levels in hepatocellular carcinomas (HCCs), and might be a potential oncogenic driver and therapeutic target for HCC.

Methods: In this study, we investigated the Abl2 expression in a series of HCC tumors by immunohistochemistry and further evaluated its clinicopathological and prognostic significance. We also performed an in vitro experiment to validate the effect of Abl2 gene silencing on the migration and invasion abilities of human liver cancer HepG2 cells.

Insights into food preference in hybrid F1 of Siniperca chuatsi (♀) × Siniperca scherzeri (♂) mandarin fish through transcriptome analysis.

Background: As economically relevant traits, feeding behavior and food preference domestication determine production cost and profitability. Although there are intensive research efforts on feeding behavior and food intake, little is known about food preference. Mandarin fish accept only live prey fish and refuse dead prey fish or artificial diets.

antibacterial activity of combinations of fosfomycin, minocycline and polymyxin B on pan-drug-resistant .

The aim of this study was to determine the effects of combinations of fosfomycin, minocycline and polymyxin B in the treatment of pan-drug-resistant (PDR-Ab). The antibacterial activities of the drugs were evaluated by determination of the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and the fractional inhibitory concentration index (FICI). A total of 25 strains of PDR-Ab were selected using the VITEK32 microbial analysis instrument and the Kirby-Bauer (K-B) method.

Clinical and molecular epidemiology of norovirus infection in adults with acute gastroenteritis in Ji'nan, China.

Acute gastroenteritis caused by human noroviruses (NoVs) has become an important public health problem worldwide. This study was carried out to investigate the rates of NoV infections and the genetic characteristics of NoVs in adult outpatients with acute gastroenteritis in Ji'nan, a large eastern city in China. A total of 480 fecal samples were collected from outpatients at the Shandong University Qilu Hospital between June 2010 and May 2011.

Development and characterization of novel polymorphic microsatellite loci in Siniperca scherzeri Steindachner and Siniperca chuatsi (Basilewsky).

De novo assemblies of transcriptome sequence of F(1) interspecies hybrids between Mandarin fish Siniperca chuatsi (Basilewsky) (♀) and Golden mandarin fish Siniperca scherzeri Steindachner (♂) were generated using Illumina sequencing. In the present study, 64 microsatellite primer pairs were designed on basis of the transcriptome data. Those primer pairs were then characterized both in S.

Isolation and characterization of 46 novel polymorphic EST-simple sequence repeats (SSR) markers in two Sinipercine Fishes (Siniperca) and cross-species amplification.

With the development of next generation sequencing technologies, transcriptome level sequence collections are emerging as prominent resources for the discovery of gene-based molecular markers. In this study, we described the isolation and characterization of 46 novel polymorphic microsatellite loci for Siniperca chuatsi and Siniperca scherzeri from the transcriptome of their F(1) interspecies hybrids. Forty-three of these loci were polymorphic in S.

Identification, organ expression and ligand-dependent expression levels of peroxisome proliferator activated receptors in grass carp (Ctenopharyngodon idella).

The peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors (PPARs) are ligand-dependent transcription factors belonging to the nuclear receptor family, and can regulate various genes involved in lipid metabolism. The aim of the present study was to investigate the tissue distribution patterns of PPARs and their ligand specificities in grass carp. We cloned three PPAR isotypes of the species and evaluated their organ distribution patterns using real-time PCR.

Methods for generating shotgun and mixed shotgun/paired-end libraries for the 454 DNA sequencer.

With the introduction of massively parallel, microminiature-based instrumentation for DNA sequencing, robust, reproducible, optimized methods are needed to prepare the target DNA for analysis using these high-throughput approaches because the cost per instrument run is orders of magnitude more than for typical Sanger dideoxynucleotide sequencing on fluorescence-based capillary systems. The methods provided by the manufacturer for genome sequencing using the 454/Roche GS-20 and GS-FLX instruments are robust. However, in an effort to streamline them for automation, we have incorporated several novel changes and deleted several extraneous steps.

Phylotyping and functional analysis of two ancient human microbiomes.

Background: The Human Microbiome Project (HMP) is one of the U.S. National Institutes of Health Roadmap for Medical Research.

Metagenomic analysis of the microbial community at Zodletone Spring (Oklahoma): insights into the genome of a member of the novel candidate division OD1.

A metagenomic library was constructed from the anaerobic sediments of a mesophilic sulfur spring. Thirty-five bacterial 16S rRNA gene-containing clones were identified in this library. Analysis of a genomic fragment belonging to candidate division OD1 provided useful insights into the physiology and biochemistry of this novel, yet-uncultured candidate division.