Rectal colonization with vancomycin-resistant enterococci among high-risk patients in an Israeli hospital.

The prevalence of rectal carriage of vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) in two high-risk populations--61 patients admitted to ICU and 92 patients on renal dialysis--was studied longitudinally over a period of six months in a 650-bed general hospital. ICU patients were swabbed weekly and dialysis patients monthly. Enterococcal isolates were fully identified using the ATB identification system, and MICs were determined according to the NCCLS recommendations.

[Participation of insulin in regulating the metabolism of marine bivalve mollusks].

Marine bivalve molluscs, the mussel Mytilus galloprovincialis aud the scallop Chlamys (Flexopecten) glaber ponticus, have been injected (intramuscularly or in the haemolymph) with glucose, mammalian insulin, insulin (or insulin-like substance) from molluscs, and anti-insulin serum, checking changes in glucose and fatty acid content of the haemolymph as well as in the content of glycogen and the activity of glycogen synthetase in muscles. After glucose injections, studies were also made on the level of IRI in the haemolymph. Comparison of the data obtained in the present work with those reported earlier for freshwater bivalve molluscs suggests that: 1) metabolic shifts induced by anti-insulin serum are more rapid in vigorous scallops than in sedentary mussels; 2) molluscan insulin (or insulin-like substance) exerts the same effect on metabolic parameters of the molluscs, as mammalian insulin exerts in vertebrates.