Maternal and Placental Antibody Responses in SARS-CoV-2 Vaccination and Natural Infection During Pregnancy.

Background: As COVID-19 becomes endemic, understanding antibody response and transfer during pregnancy is crucial to inform policy and vaccination schedules. While good immunogenicity has been shown from SARS-CoV-2 vaccines, few data are available demonstrating functional responses in pregnant populations and infants.

Methods: A prospective, multi-site observational study was completed across 14 centers in England from April 23, 2020, to December 21, 2022.

Antibiotics and iron-limiting conditions and their effect on the production and composition of outer membrane vesicles secreted from clinical isolates of extraintestinal pathogenic E. coli.

Purpose: The focus of this study was to characterize the effect of clinically relevant stress-inducing conditions on the production and composition of proinflammatory outer membrane vesicles (OMVs) produced from ST131 extraintestinal pathogenic Escherichia coli (ExPEC) clinical isolates.

Experimental Design: A label-free method (relative normalized spectral index quantification, SINQ) was used to identify changes in the respective OMV proteomes following exposure of the ExPEC strains to antibiotics and low iron. Nanoparticle tracking analysis was used to quantify changes in abundance and size of OMVs produced by the gentamicin-resistant (GenR) and gentamicin-sensitive (GenS) ExPEC strains.

Quantitative measurement of the efficacy of protein removal by cleaning formulations; comparative evaluation of prion-directed cleaning chemistries.

The stability of the infectious agent causing variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) has highlighted the importance of cleaning surgical instruments for controlling potential spread of iatrogenic CJD. In this study, thermostable adenylate kinases (tAKs) in test soil were coated on to stainless steel and these surrogate agents used to evaluate the efficacy of a range of cleaning chemistries in a bench-top washer disinfector (btWD), or as a pre-soak either with or without subsequent treatment by btWD. Two tAKs were tested initially for ease of removal, the most persistent being Sulfolobus acidocaldarius-derived tAK which was used for evaluating the cleaning chemistries.

Thermostable adenylate kinase technology: a new process indicator and its use as a validation tool for the reprocessing of surgical instruments.

Adenylate kinase (tAK), a thermostable enzyme, was assessed as a possible means of providing a quantitative measure of cleaning efficacy suitable for validating the performance of an automated washer disinfector (AWD) during routine use. Two indicator formulations were developed using either a commercially available washer disinfector soil or a protein-based soil. Each indicator consisted of 100 microg (in test soil) of tAK dried on to a steel or plastic surface.

A role for His155 in binding of human prion peptide144-167 to immobilised prion protein.

The interactions and conformational changes that lead to the conversion of the normal prion protein (PrP(c)) to its pathogenic form, PrP(sc), are still being elucidated. Using Surface Plasma Resonance (SPR), we provide evidence that a synthetic peptide (PrP(144-167)) corresponding to residues comprising the alpha helix 1-beta strand 2 domain of PrP(c) is able to interact and bind to immobilised recombinant human PrP (rHuPrP) in a dose-dependent manner. The interaction is pH dependent with an increase in binding observed as the pH is lowered, particularly between pH 6.