Global phylogeography and evolutionary history of Shigella dysenteriae type 1.

Together with plague, smallpox and typhus, epidemics of dysentery have been a major scourge of human populations for centuries(1). A previous genomic study concluded that Shigella dysenteriae type 1 (Sd1), the epidemic dysentery bacillus, emerged and spread worldwide after the First World War, with no clear pattern of transmission(2). This is not consistent with the massive cyclic dysentery epidemics reported in Europe during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries(1,3,4) and the first isolation of Sd1 in Japan in 1897(5).

[Corynebacterium imitans isolated from blood culture in a patient with suspected bacteremia - the first isolation from human clinical material in the Czech Republic].

The current view of the clinical importance of nondiphtherial corynebacteria recovered from human clinical material has changed considerably in recent decades; in many cases, a direct etiological role is assumed or has already been demonstrated. Presented is a case of suspected bacteremia in a hospitalized elderly woman with isolation of the very rare species Corynebacterium imitans from blood culture. However, the etiological significance of the isolated microorganism remains unclear.

Species identification of strains belonging to genus Citrobacter using the biochemical method and MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry.

Strains of genus Citrobacter (152 isolates from 1950 to 1988 deposited in the Czech National Collection of Type Cultures, Prague) were re-classified using biological and matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) methods. One-hundred thirty-six strains (ca. 90 %) were identified to the species level using the biological method with evaluation by Farmer matrix.

[Antibiotic resistance in nontyphoidal salmonellae serovars in the Czech Republic].

Study Aim: To determine antibiotic resistance and incidence of multidrug resistance among Nontyphoidal salmonellae serovars isolated from humans.

Material And Methods: Consecutive Salmonella isolates from patients, recovered in 48 microbiology laboratories in May 2012, were analyzed in the respective reference laboratories at the National Institute of Public Health. Strains were re-identified and differentiated into serovars.

Pleomorphic conidiation in Claviceps.

Types of asexual sporulation in 17 Claviceps species and the closely related Corallocytostroma ornicopreoides were revised in relation to the phylogeny of clavicipitaceous fungi. We observed: (1) enteroblastic conidiation from branched phialidic conidiophores typical of the genus (anamorph Sphacelia) in all species including Corallocytostroma; (2) widespread and often sequential formation of terminal holoblastic secondary conidia on tapering hyphae arising from sphacelial macroconidia: and (3) in addition to sphacelial conidiation, sympodial holoblastic conidiation of the Ephelis-type in cultures of C. zizaniae and in both the culture and sphacelial tissue of C.

Ergot alkaloids produced by submerged cultures of Claviceps zizaniae.

Two ergopeptine alkaloids, alpha-ergocryptine (1) and its C(8) epimer alpha-ergocryptinine, have been isolated from the mycelium and fermentation broth of submerged cultures of Claviceps zizaniae CCM 8240. The structure of 1 was determined by HPLC/positive ion APCI MS and NMR analysis. Alkaloid concentrations of 10 microg/mL in 14-day-old fermentation broth and 1 mg/g of dry mycelium mass were found.