The Potential Benefits of the Influenza Vaccination on COVID-19 Mortality Rate-A Retrospective Analysis of Patients in Poland.

In this study,we used publicly available data from the Centrum e-Zdrowia (CeZ) Polish Databank proposing a possible correlation between influenza vaccination and mortality due to COVID-19. We limited our search to the patients with positive COVID‑19 laboratory tests from 1 January 2020 to 31 March 2021 and who filled a prescription for any influenza vaccine during the 2019-2020 influenza season. In total, we included 116,277 patients and used a generalized linear model to analyze the data.

Resistance gene transfer: induction of transducing phage by sub-inhibitory concentrations of antimicrobials is not correlated to induction of lytic phage.

Objectives: Horizontal gene transfer of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) genes between clinical isolates via transduction is poorly understood. MRSA are opportunistic pathogens resistant to all classes of antimicrobial agents but currently no strains are fully drug resistant. AMR gene transfer between Staphylococcus aureus isolates is predominantly due to generalized transduction via endogenous bacteriophage, and recent studies have suggested transfer is elevated during host colonization.

Within-host diversity of MRSA antimicrobial resistances.

Objectives: MRSA is a major antimicrobial resistance (AMR) pathogen. The reservoir of infecting isolates is colonization, which is the site of evolutionary selection. The aim was to identify if AMRs in colonizing MRSA populations diversified and potential mechanisms of resistance gene transfer in vivo.

[Application of Western blotting for the detection of uncoupling protein-2 (UCP-2) in mitochondria from smokers and non-smokers].

Introduction: Uncoupling proteins (UCPs) are a family of transmembrane anion transporters present in the inner mitochondrial membrane. UCP-2, which exhibits the widest distribution in various tissues, plays an important role in many physiological processes. Human UCP-2 studies have been hampered by the lack of a method for measuring this protein in an easily accessible human tissue, e.

CDP-choline (citicoline) attenuates brain damage in a rat model of birth asphyxia.

To estimate protective potential of citicoline in a model of birth asphyxia, the drug was given to 7-day old rats subjected to permanent unilateral carotid artery occlusion and exposed for 65 min to a hypoxic gas mixture. Daily citicoline doses of 100 or 300 m/kg, or vehicle, were injected intraperitoneally for 7 consecutive days beginning immediately after the end of the ischemic-hypoxic insult, and brain damage was assessed by gross zorphology score and weight deficit two weeks after the insult. Caspase-3, alpha-fodrin, Bcl-2, and Hsp70 levels were assessed at 0, 1, and 24 h after the end of the hypoxic insult in another group of rat pups subjected to the same insult and given a single dose of 300 m/kg of citicoline or the vehicle.