Male sexual assault: Physical injury and vulnerability in 103 presentations.

Objectives: To i) describe the demographic and assault characteristics of males alleging recent sexual assault, ii) determine the severity and frequency of general body injury and the frequency of anal and genital injury, iii) identify vulnerability factors and assault characteristics associated with injury.

Design: Cross-sectional study.

Setting: Sexual Assault Resource Centre (SARC), Western Australia.

Sexual assault and general body injuries: A detailed cross-sectional Australian study of 1163 women.

Objectives: To describe the frequency and severity of general body injury in women alleging recent sexual assault and then identify demographic and assault characteristics associated with injury severity.

Design: Cross-sectional study.

Setting: Sexual Assault Resource Centre (SARC), Western Australia.

Capturing sexual assault data: An information system designed by forensic clinicians and healthcare researchers.

Background: The Sexual Assault Resource Center (SARC) in Perth, Western Australia provides free 24-hour medical, forensic, and counseling services to persons aged over 13 years following sexual assault.

Objective: The aim of this research was to design a data management system that maintains accurate quality information on all sexual assault cases referred to SARC, facilitating audit and peer-reviewed research.

Methods: The work to develop SARC Medical Services Clinical Information System (SARC-MSCIS) took place during 2007-2009 as a collaboration between SARC and Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia.

Genital and anal injuries: A cross-sectional Australian study of 1266 women alleging recent sexual assault.

Objectives: To describe the frequency of genital and anal injury and associated demographic and assault characteristics in women alleging sexual assault.

Design: Cross-sectional study.

Setting: Sexual Assault Resource Centre (SARC), Western Australia.

Non-fatal strangulation in sexual assault: A study of clinical and assault characteristics highlighting the role of intimate partner violence.

Objective: To describe the prevalence, risk factors, signs and symptoms of non-fatal strangulation (NFS) in women referred to a Sexual Assault Resource Centre (SARC) following recent sexual assault.

Methods: A cross-sectional study using data routinely collected at time of forensic examination of women (age ≥ 13 years) referred to the Western Australian SARC between Jan-2009 and Mar-2015 alleging a recent sexual assault. Data on demographics, assault characteristics and forensic findings were available.

Early evidence kits in sexual assault: an observational study of spermatozoa detection in urine and other forensic specimens.

Purpose: To determine the detection frequency of spermatozoa in early evidence kit specimens and in subsequent full forensic specimens in alleged sexual assault.

Methods: Observational cohort study of 100 consecutive alleged sexual assault cases, presenting in Western Australia between 19th July 2008 and 6th February 2012, with both early evidence kit and full forensic evidence specimen collections. Eighty-eight cases were included in the study.

Uptake and continuation rates of the intrauterine system in a university student general practice population in the UK.

Objective: To follow a series of 100 women attending for fitting of the levonorgestrel-releasing intrauterine system (LNG IUS) registered at a single urban general practice serving the students of the local universities and higher education colleges.

Methods: This was a prospective observational study. A questionnaire was completed by the fitter in discussion with the patient at the time of attendance for IUS fitting.

Mycobacterium tuberculosis Rv0198c, a putative matrix metalloprotease is involved in pathogenicity.

We are interested in the role of proteases in the biology of the global human pathogen, Mycobacterium tuberculosis. We have focused on a putative matrix metalloprotease, Rv0198c. In order to investigate its role we constructed an unmarked chromosomal deletion of the gene and analysed the phenotype of the resulting mutant.

The carbon starvation-inducible genes Rv2557 and Rv2558 of Mycobacterium tuberculosis are not required for long-term survival under carbon starvation and for virulence in SCID mice.

Mycobacterium tuberculosis genes Rv2557 and Rv2558 have no known function. However, proteome, transcriptome and in situ hybridization studies have shown that these genes are significantly upregulated under carbon-starved conditions and in human granulomas, suggesting that they may play a role in persistence. Single and double deletion mutants of M.

The Mycobacterium tuberculosis protein serine/threonine kinase PknG is linked to cellular glutamate/glutamine levels and is important for growth in vivo.

The function of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis eukaryotic-like protein serine/threonine kinase PknG was investigated by gene knock-out and by expression and biochemical analysis. The pknG gene (Rv0410c), when cloned and expressed in Escherichia coli, encodes a functional kinase. An in vitro kinase assay of the recombinant protein demonstrated that PknG can autophosphorylate its kinase domain as well as its 30 kDa C-terminal portion, which contains a tetratricopeptide (TPR) structural signalling motif.

The Mycobacterium tuberculosis ino1 gene is essential for growth and virulence.

Inositol is utilized by Mycobacterium tuberculosis in the production of its major thiol and of essential cell wall lipoglycans. We have constructed a mutant lacking the gene encoding inositol-1-phosphate synthase (ino1), which catalyses the first committed step in inositol synthesis. This mutant is only viable in the presence of extremely high levels of inositol.

The senX3-regX3 two-component regulatory system of Mycobacterium tuberculosis is required for virulence.

Two-component regulatory systems have been widely implicated in bacterial virulence. To investigate the role of one such system in Mycobacterium tuberculosis, a strain was constructed in which the senX3-regX3 system was deleted by homologous recombination. The mutant strain (Tame15) showed a growth defect after infection of macrophages and was attenuated in both immunodeficient and immunocompetent mice.

Deletion of two-component regulatory systems increases the virulence of Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

Two-component regulatory signal transduction systems are widely distributed among bacteria and enable the organisms to make coordinated changes in gene expression in response to a variety of environmental stimuli. The genome sequence of Mycobacterium tuberculosis contains 11 complete two-component systems, four isolated homologous regulators, and three isolated homologous sensors. We have constructed defined mutations in six of these genes and measured virulence in a SCID mouse model.

Characterization of a Mycobacterium tuberculosis H37Rv transposon library reveals insertions in 351 ORFs and mutants with altered virulence.

A library of Mycobacterium tuberculosis insertional mutants was generated with the transposon Tn5370. The junction sequence between the transposon and the mycobacterial chromosome was determined, revealing the positions of 1329 unique insertions, 1189 of which were located in 351 different ORFs. Transposition was not completely random and examination of the most susceptible genome regions revealed a lower-than-average G+C content ranging from 54 to 62 mol%.

Construction and phenotypic characterization of an auxotrophic mutant of Mycobacterium tuberculosis defective in L-arginine biosynthesis.

A mutant of Mycobacterium tuberculosis defective in the metabolism of L-arginine was constructed by allelic exchange mutagenesis. The argF mutant strain required exogenous L-arginine for growth in vitro, and in the presence of 0.96 mM L-arginine, it achieved a growth rate and cell density in stationary phase comparable to those of the wild type.