Publications by authors named "Hassouna N"

A high cellulase-producing bacterial isolate TS4 was recovered from an Egyptian soil sample and identified using 16S rRNA gene sequencing as Streptomyces thermodiastaticus. One-factor-at-a-time (OFAT) preliminary studies were carried out to determine the key factors affecting cellulase production by S. thermodiastaticus and their optimum ranges.

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Cephalosporins presently stand as the most extensively utilized antibiotic in clinical settings. Acremonium (A.) chrysogenum is the main strain used in the manufacturing of cephalosporin C (CPC), which offers distinct advantages, including a wide-ranging antibacterial spectrum and powerful antibacterial efficacy.

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A former work conducted in our Lab, lead to in a effective scale up of vitamin D3 bioconversion into calcitriol by Actinomyces (A.) hyovaginalis isolate CCASU-A11-2 in Lab fermenter (14 L) resulting in 32.8 µg/100 mL of calcitriol.

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Semen possesses a variety of antioxidant defense mechanisms which protect sperm DNA from the damaging effects of oxidative stress. Correlation between antioxidant genes variants and sperm DNA fragmentation (SDF) level is not sufficiently studied. Therefore, we investigated the association between several single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs): CYP1A1 (rs1048943A > G), CYP4F2 (rs2108622G > A), NRF2 (rs6721961C > A), PON1 (rs662A > G), NOS3 (rs1799983G > T), GSTM1 (null), CAT (rs1001179C > T), SOD2 (rs4880A > G), GSTP1 (rs1695A > G), PON2 (rs7493G > C), EPHX2 (rs1042064T > C), and AHR (rs2066853G > A) and elevated SDF.

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Most antibiotics now used in clinical practice are cephalosporins. Acremonium (A.) chrysogenum W42-I is an intermediate strain out of W42 strain improvement program whose productivity is above that of the wild-type strain to produce the broad-spectrum antibacterial cephalosporin C (CPC).

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Vitamin D is a fat-soluble prohormone that is activated inside the liver to produce 25-hydroxyvitamin D (calcidiol), and in the kidney to produce the fully active 1α, 25-dihydroxy vitamin D (calcitriol). A previous work piloted in our laboratory, resulted in a successful recovery of a local soil-promising Actinomyces hyovaginalis isolate CCASU-A11-2 capable of converting vitamin D into calcitriol. Despite the rising amount of research on vitamin D bioconversion into calcitriol, further deliberate studies on this topic can significantly contribute to the improvement of such a bioconversion process.

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Background: The dissemination of carbapenem resistance via carbapenemases, such as the metallo-β-lactamase NDM, among Enterobacterales poses a public health threat. The aim of this study was to characterize a plasmid carrying the bla gene, which was extracted from a clinical Klebsiella pneumoniae uropathogen from an Egyptian patient suffering from a urinary tract infection.

Methods And Results: The recovered plasmid was transformed into competent E.

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Introduction: The insurgence of antimicrobial resistance is an imminent health danger globally. A wide range of challenging diseases are attributed to methicillin-resistant (MRSA) as it is weaponized with a unique array of virulence factors, and most importantly, the resistance it develops to most of the antibiotics used clinically. On that account, the present study targeted the optimization of the production of a bacteriophage active against MRSA, and evaluating some of its characters.

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Background: Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) causes life-threatening infections, with narrow therapeutic options including: vancomycin and linezolid. Accordingly, this study aimed to characterize phenotypically and genotypically, the most relevant means of linezolid resistance among some MRSA clinical isolates.

Methods: A total of 159 methicillin-resistant clinical isolates were collected, of which 146 were indentified microscopically and biochemically as MRSA.

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The most prevalent cause of infectious neonatal diarrhea is Group A rotavirus (RVA). Unfortunately, there is a dearth of data on the incidence of rotavirus-associated infections among Egyptian children. The present study aimed to isolate, propagate, and genotype human rotaviruses circulating among Egyptian children with acute gastroenteritis admitted to two main university pediatric hospitals, Abo El-Reesh and El-Demerdash, over two consecutive winters, 2018-2020.

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Accumulating evidence has denoted the danger of resistance in tenacious organisms like methicillin-resistant (MRSA). MRSA, a supple bacterium that adopts a variety of antibiotic resistance mechanisms, is the cause of multiple life-threatening conditions. Approaching a post-antibiotic era, bacteria-specific natural predators, bacteriophages, are now given the chance to prove eligible for joining the antibacterial weaponry.

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Gram-negative bacteria are common causes of urinary tract infections (UTIs). Such pathogens can acquire genes encoding multiple mechanisms of antimicrobial resistance, including carbapenem resistance. The aim of this study was to detect the carbapenemase-producing ability of some Gram-negative bacterial isolates from urine specimens of patients suffering from complicated UTIs at two vital tertiary care hospitals in Cairo, Egypt; to determine the prevalence of carbapenemase genes among plasmid-bearing isolates; and explore the possibility of horizontal gene transfer to other bacterial species.

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Macrolide-resistant methicillin-resistant (MAC-MRSA) is one of the most clinically relevant pathogens due to its significant ability of resistance acquisition to different antimicrobial agents. This study aimed to evaluate antimicrobial susceptibility and the use of different combinations of azithromycin with other antibiotics for combating MAC resistance. Seventy-two (38.

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Failure in the treatment of P. aeruginosa, due to its broad spectrum of resistance, has been associated with increased patient mortality. One alternative approach for infection control is quorum quenching which was found to decrease virulence of such pathogen.

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Background: This study aimed to produce, purify, structurally elucidate, and explore the biological activities of metabolites produced by isolate KJ623766, a recovered soil bacterium previously screened in our lab that showed promising cytotoxic activities against various cancer cell lines.

Methods: Production of cytotoxic metabolites from isolate KJ623766 was carried out in a 14L laboratory fermenter under specified optimum conditions. Using a 3-(4,5-dimethylthazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyl tetrazolium-bromide assay, the cytotoxic activity of the ethyl acetate extract against 2 and cancer cell lines was determined.

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Antibiotic resistance is exuberantly becoming a deleterious health problem world-wide. Seeking innovative approaches is necessary in order to circumvent such a hazard. An unconventional fill-in to antibiotics is bacteriophage.

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In this study, the correlation between the antibiotic resistance genes and antibiotic susceptibility among the carbapenem-resistant Gram-negative pathogens (CRGNPs) recovered from patients diagnosed with acute pneumonia in Egypt was found. A total of 194 isolates including (89; 46%), (47; 24%) and (58; 30%) were recovered. Of these, 34 (18%) isolates were multiple drug resistant (MDR) and carbapenem resistant.

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Para-hydroxybenzoic acid (PHBA) has great potential in biological applications due to its putative antiviral activity against SARS-CoV-2 and its antimicrobial activity in the face of the radically increasing number of multidrug-resistant pathogens. This is in addition to its antimutagenic, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, hypoglycemic, antiestrogenic, and antiplatelet aggregating activities. In this study, an approximate sixfold increase in the production of PHBA was achieved via biotransformation of caffeic acid by Candida albicans.

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Background: The emergence of multidrug-resistant (MDR) uropathogens has become a public health threat and current knowledge of the genotypic basis of bacterial resistance is essential for selecting appropriate treatment options.

Objectives: To determine the prevalence of antimicrobial resistance among MDR uropathogens and to elucidate the molecular bases of plasmid-mediated resistance.

Methods: Bacterial isolates were recovered from urine specimens of 150 out-patients with signs and symptoms of urinary tract infections (UTIs) at El-Demerdash Hospital, Cairo, Egypt.

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Rhamnolipids are important biosurfactants for application in bioremediation, enhanced oil recovery, pharmaceutical, and detergent industry. In this study, rhamnolipids extracted from P. aeruginosa P6 were characterized to determine their potential fields of application.

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Persisters of infectious agents are capable of surviving antibiotic treatment so the emergence of these subpopulations need to be overcome. In this study, we aimed to isolate, characterize and inhibit persister subpopulation in two clinical isolates Klebsiella pneumoniae and Proteus mirabilis. Different behavior profiles between the two isolates could be observed.

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About 24 h incubation of Azomonas (A.) macrocytogenes isolate KC685000 in 14L fermenter produced 22% poly (3-hydroxybutyrate) (PHB) per cell dry weight (CDW) biopolymer using 1 vvm aeration, 10% inoculum size, and initial pH of 7.2.

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Background: Response surface methodology (RSM) employing Box-Behnken design was used to optimize the environmental factors for the production of paromomycin, a 2 deoxystreptamine aminocyclitol aminoglycoside antibiotic, (2DOS-ACAGA) from Streptomyces (S.) rimosus NRRL 2455. Emergence of bacterial resistance caught our attention to consider the combination of antimicrobial agents.

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Solid-state fermentation has a special advantage of preventing the foaming problem that obstructs submerged fermentation processes for rhamnolipid production. In the present work, a 50:50 mixture of sugarcane bagasse and sunflower seed meal was selected as the optimum substrate for rhamnolipid production using a Pseudomonas aeruginosa mutant 15GR and an impregnating solution including 5% v/v glycerol. Using Box-Behnken design, the optimum fermentation conditions were found to be an inoculum size 1% v/v, temperature 30 °C and unlike other studies, pH 8.

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The increasing occurrence of resistance among Pseudomonas aeruginosa clinical isolates necessitates finding alternatives to antibiotics for controlling the infection of such pathogenic bacteria. In this study, lactonase gene ahl-1 from Bacillus weihenstephanensis isolate-P65 was successfully cloned and expressed in Escherichia coli BL21 (DE3) under the control of T7 promoter for utilizing its quorum quenching activity against three multidrug-resistant (MDR) P. aeruginosa clinical isolates.

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