Publications by authors named "Sergio E L Fracalanzza"

Neisseria gonorrhoeae is a global threat to public health due to the accumulation of antimicrobial resistance mechanisms. ST-1901 is an internationally important sequence type (ST) because of its high incidence and the usual occurrence of chromosomally determined resistance. In this study, we describe the evolution of the ST-1901 and its single locus variants in Rio de Janeiro from 2006 to 2022.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Group B Streptococcus sequence type 103 is known primarily as a bovine mastitis pathogen. In Brazil, it has circulated in cattle and humans since the 1990s. It lacks scpB and, in humans, was found only among carriage isolates.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

(Group B ; GBS) is a leading cause of neonatal invasive disease worldwide. GBS can colonize the human gastrointestinal and genitourinary tracts, and the anovaginal colonization of pregnant women is the main source for neonatal infection. , in turn, can colonize the human upper respiratory, gastrointestinal, and genitourinary tracts but has rarely been observed causing disease.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Group B Streptococcus (GBS) is a leading cause of neonatal infections. The genitourinary and gastrointestinal tract of pregnant women are the main source of transmission to newborns. This work investigated the prevalence and characterized GBS from pregnant women in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, comparing the periods before (January 2019 to March 2020; 521) and during (May 2020 to March 2021; 285) the COVID-19 pandemic.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

subsp. (SDSD) is an important agent of bovine mastitis. This infection causes an inflammatory reaction in udder tissue, being the most important disease-causing significant impact on the dairy industry.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Group B Streptococcus (GBS) is a significant cause of infections during pregnancy and is known to form biofilms, which can lead to persistent and recurrent infections.* -
  • A study evaluated how different concentrations of penicillin affect biofilm formation in four GBS strains from pregnant women; although these strains were sensitive to penicillin, the antibiotic couldn’t completely stop biofilm development.* -
  • Results showed that while penicillin reduced the biomass and number of live cells in biofilms, higher concentrations did not improve the prevention of biofilm formation, raising concerns about the effectiveness of penicillin in treating GBS infections.*
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

(group B , GBS) is a major pathogen in humans and animals. Pili and biofilm may be important virulence factors in this bacterial species. Here, biofilm production and the distribution of pilus variants among 134 GBS isolates from human and animal sources were evaluated.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Salmonella enterica serovar Panama is a pathogen linked to nontyphoidal salmonellosis, and this study focused on characterizing its strains from Northeast Brazil using various methods.
  • Forty-four strains were tested for antimicrobial resistance, virulence genes, and classified by PFGE, revealing that all were susceptible to antibiotics except streptomycin.
  • The study highlights the need for ongoing monitoring of antibiotic resistance and emerging clones in the region.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Azithromycin is one of the drugs used in the combined therapy for syndromic treatment of gonorrhoea in many countries, including Brazil. Our research group, which receives isolates from clinical laboratories since 2006, has detected, after 2016, a tendency of rising rates of azithromycin resistance, with isolates showing higher minimal inhibitory concentrations (MICs) than those previously reported in this country. In this study, we report the susceptibility to azithromycin of 93 isolates obtained between 2014 and 2017.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Salmonella infections usually occur as gastroenteritis that is generally self-limited. However, some serotypes of Salmonella can cause severe extra-intestinal infections, such as bacteremia and meningitis. Here, we report the first Salmonella Panama case of meningitis in 4-month-old male newborn in Brazil.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Group B Streptococcus (GBS) carriage by pregnant women is the primary risk factor for early-onset GBS neonatal sepsis. Intrapartum antibiotic prophylaxis (IAP) can prevent this transmission route, and two main approaches are recommended to base the selection of pregnant women to be submitted to IAP: the risk-based and the culture-based strategies. In Brazil, compliance to such recommendations is poor, and not much is known about GBS carriage.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Neisseria gonorrhoeae is the agent of gonorrhea, a sexually transmitted infection with an estimate from The World Health Organization of 78 million new cases in people aged 15-49 worldwide during 2012. If left untreated, complications may include pelvic inflammatory disease and infertility. Antimicrobial treatment is usually effective; however, resistance has emerged successively through various molecular mechanisms for all the regularly used therapeutic agents throughout decades.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

is an important agent of urinary tract infection (UTI) in young women, but information about this pathogen in human microbiota and in common environment is lacking. The aim of this study was to characterize isolates from genitoanal microbiota of 621 pregnant women, 10 minas cheese packs, and five beaches in Rio de Janeiro city and compare PFGE profiles of these isolates with five UTI PFGE clusters described in this city. We investigated 65 isolates from microbiota, 13 from minas cheese, and 30 from beaches and 32 UTI isolates.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Klebsiella pneumoniae is a pathogen frequently associated with antibiotic-resistant nosocomial infections. Here, we describe the genome of KP-Rio/2015, a novel phage of K. pneumoniae belonging to the family Podoviridae.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: There are limited data regarding Xpert performance to detect Group B Streptococcus (GBS) in HIV-infected pregnant women. We evaluated the accuracy of a rapid real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test in a cohort of HIV-infected women.

Methods: At 35-37 weeks of pregnancy, a pair of combined rectovaginal swabs were collected for two GBS assays in a cohort of sequentially included HIV-infected women in Rio de Janeiro: (1) culture; and (2) real-time PCR assay [GeneXpert GBS (Cepheid, Sunnyvale, CA)].

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Staphylococcus aureus ica-independent biofilms are multifactorial in nature, and various bacterial proteins have been associated with biofilm development, including fibronectin-binding proteins A and B, protein A, surface protein SasG, proteases, and some autolysins. The role of extracellular DNA (eDNA) has also been demonstrated in some S. aureus biofilms.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Group B Streptococcus (GBS) remains a major cause of neonatal sepsis and is also associated with invasive and noninvasive infections in pregnant women and non-pregnant adults, elderly and patients with underlying medical conditions. Ten capsular serotypes have been recognized, and determination of their distribution within a specific population or geographical region is important as they are major targets for the development of vaccine strategies. We have evaluated the characteristics of GBS isolates recovered from individuals with infections or colonization by this microorganism, living in different geographic regions of Brazil.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: A novel variant of the ST1-SCCmecIV methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) lineage, mostly associated with nosocomial bloodstream infections (BSI), has emerged in Rio de Janeiro. Bacterial biofilm has been considered a major virulence factor in central venous catheter-associated BSI. The mechanisms involved in biofilm formation/accumulation are multifactorial and complex.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objectives: An aqueous extract and fraction from the marine sponge Petromica citrina have antibacterial activity. We performed a chemical and biological characterization of the antibiotic substance from P. citrina and investigated its mode of action on Staphylococcus aureus cells.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • * The most common species were Staphylococcus epidermidis and Staphylococcus haemolyticus, with S. epidermidis from patients showing more virulence traits and a higher ability to form biofilms compared to those from the air.
  • * Despite this, some airborne isolates had similar virulence and biofilm capabilities as patient isolates, indicating that further research is needed to understand how hospital air may contribute to the spread of CoNS, particularly S. epidermidis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

We assessed fluconazole susceptibility in 52 Candida tropicalis clinical strains using seven antifungal susceptibility methods, including broth microdilution (BMD) [standard M27 A3 (with neutral and acid pH), ATB Fungus 3, Vitek 2 system and flow cytometric analysis] and agar-based methods (disk diffusion and E-test). Trailing growth, detection of cell-associated secreted aspartic proteases (Saps) and morphological and ultrastructural traits of these clinical strains were also examined. The ranges of fluconazole 24 h-minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) values were similar among all methods.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF