Use pattern and off-label use of atypical antipsychotics in bipolar disorder, 1998-2002.

Background: Postmarketing surveillance that identifies patients at high risk for receiving off-label medications will help ensure that the benefits of such treatment outweigh the risks. Because many off-label uses have little scientific support, tracking the extent to which they occur as well as the particular circumstances under which they occur is important.

Objective: To describe the drug-use pattern for patients with bipolar disorder, and to identify demographic and clinical factors associated with off-label use of atypical antipsychotics before US Food and Drug Administration approval for this indication.

Pneumocystis murina colonization in immunocompetent surfactant protein A deficient mice following environmental exposure.

Background: Pneumocystis spp. are opportunistic pathogens that cause pneumonia in immunocompromised humans and animals. Pneumocystis colonization has also been detected in immunocompetent hosts and may exacerbate other pulmonary diseases.

Expression of hygromycin phosphotransferase alters virulence of Histoplasma capsulatum.

The Escherichia coli hygromycin phosphotransferase (hph) gene, which confers hygromycin resistance, is commonly used as a dominant selectable marker in genetically modified bacteria, fungi, plants, insects, and mammalian cells. Expression of the hph gene has rarely been reported to induce effects other than those expected. Hygromycin B is the most common dominant selectable marker used in the molecular manipulation of Histoplasma capsulatum in the generation of knockout strains of H.