Serratia ficaria: a misidentified or unidentified rare cause of human infections in fig tree culture zones.

Serratia ficaria, an enterobacterium involved in the fig tree ecosystem, has been isolated from human clinical samples in rare instances, and its role as a pathogen is unclear. In 7 years, we have isolated S. ficaria from seven patients; it was the only pathogen in 4 patients, including a patient with septicemia described previously and three patients with gallbladder empyemas described in the present report.

Comparative evaluation of blood culture using the Vital automated system and the Becton-Dickinson Septi-Chek BHI-S biphasic and Sch bottles.

A comparative study was performed using 1,168 aerobic and anaerobic blood culture pairs from 395 patients, during which 5-10 mL of blood were collected in both Septi-Chek BHI-S biphasic and Septi-Chek Sch bottles (Becton-Dickinson, Meylan, France) and Vital AER and Vital Ana bottles (bioMérieux, Marcy-l'Etoile, France). The bottles were analyzed by using a 7-day protocol for Vital and a 12-day protocol for Septi-Chek. The Vital bottles revealed negative were all subcultured at the end of the protocol.

Mouse plasma kallikrein: cDNA structure, enzyme characterization, and comparison of protein and mRNA levels among species.

There is differential regulation of liver mRNA levels of rat (r) and mouse (m) plasma kallikrein (PK), as observed on Northern blots. Affinity purification of mPK and rPK, microsequencing, and radioimmunoassay in either rat or mouse showed that the difference in mRNA levels does not appreciably affect the circulating PK concentration. Nuclear run-off assays demonstrated that the regulation of the mRNA level of PK is post-transcriptionally controlled.