Value of second-trimester uterine artery pulsatility index in pregnancies with systemic lupus erythematosus and/or antiphospholipid syndrome.

Objective: To assess the value of the second trimester mean pulsatility index of the uterine arteries (MPI-UtA) to predict adverse perinatal outcome (APO) in women with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and/or antiphospholipid syndrome (APS).

Methods: Pregnancies with either an SLE diagnosis or with primary APS controlled at our Hospital during a 10 years period were included. MPI-UtA was performed between 19-23 weeks' gestation.

Middle cerebral artery Doppler pulsatility index as a predictor of intrapartum meconium release in prolonged pregnancies.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to asses the correlation of middle cerebral artery pulsatility index (MCA-PI) and perinatal outcomes in prolonged pregnancies.

Study Design: This was a prospective study of all consecutive pregnant women beyond 41 weeks' gestation attending for obstetric surveillance during a two years period. We evaluated the predictive value of MCA-PI lower than the 5th percentile ( View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Isolation of N2 -fixing rhizobacteria from Lolium perenne and evaluating their plant growth promoting traits.

Twenty one dinitrogen (N2 )-fixing bacteria were isolated from the rhizosphere of Lolium perenne grown for more than 10 years without N-fertilization. The nearly complete sequence of the 16S rRNA gene of each strain and pairwise alignments among globally aligned sequences of the 16S rRNA genes clustered them into nine different groups. Out of the 21 strains, 11 were members of genus Bacillus, 3 belonged to each one of genera Paenibacillus and Pseudoxanthomonas, and the remaining 2 strains to each one of genera Burkholderia and Staphylococcus, respectively.