Performance of the Reveal Rapid Antibiotic Susceptibility Testing System on Gram-Negative Blood Cultures at a Large Urban Hospital.

Timely and effective antibiotic treatment is vital for sepsis, with increasing incidence of antimicrobial-resistant bacteremia driving interest in rapid phenotypic susceptibility testing. To enable the widespread adoption needed to make an impact, antibiotic susceptibility testing (AST) systems need to be accurate, enable rapid intervention, have a broad antimicrobial menu and be easy to use and affordable. We evaluated the Specific Reveal (Specific Diagnostics, San Jose, CA) rapid AST system on positive blood cultures with Gram-negative organisms in a relatively resistant population in a large urban hospital to assess its potential for routine clinical use.

Genetic Characterization of Didymella bryoniae Isolates Infecting Watermelon and Other Cucurbits in Florida and Georgia.

Gummy stem blight caused by Didymella bryoniae (anamorph Phoma cucurbitacearum) is a major fungal disease of watermelon (Citrullus lanatus) and other cucurbits. Thirty-five isolates of Didymella and Phoma spp. associated with symptoms of gummy stem blight on watermelon, Canary melon (Cucumis melo), muskmelon (C.

Effect of solar radiation on severity of soybean rust.

Soybean rust (SBR), caused by Phakopsora pachyrhizi, is a damaging fungal disease of soybean (Glycine max). Although solar radiation can reduce SBR urediniospore survival, limited information is available on how solar radiation affects SBR progress within soybean canopies. Such information can aid in developing accurate SBR prediction models.

Evolution of Bacillus subtilis to enhanced growth at low pressure: up-regulated transcription of des-desKR, encoding the fatty acid desaturase system.

The atmospheric pressure on Mars ranges from 1-10 mbar, about 1% of Earth pressure (∼1013 mbar). Low pressure is a growth-inhibitory factor for terrestrial microorganisms on Mars, and a putative low-pressure barrier for growth of Earth bacteria of ∼25 mbar has been postulated. In a previous communication, we described the isolation of a strain of Bacillus subtilis that had evolved enhanced growth ability at the near-inhibitory low pressure of 50 mbar.

Genetic differentiation in natural populations of a keystone bunchgrass (Aristida stricta) across its native range.

Aristida stricta Michx. (Poaceae) is a perennial bunchgrass native to the Southeastern Coastal Plain of North America where it is a keystone species in the longleaf pine savannas and slash pine flatwoods from southeastern North Carolina to Florida, and westward to the coast of Mississippi. We examined genetic relationships within and among ten populations of A.

Genetic diversity of the endangered and narrow endemic Piperia yadonii (Orchidaceae) assessed with ISSR polymorphisms.

Highly endangered plants that are also narrow endemics are generally found to be genetically depauperate and thus are exceedingly susceptible to ecological and anthropological threats that can lead to their extinction. Piperia yadonii is restricted to a single California county within a biodiversity hotspot. We used nine primers to generate intersimple sequence repeat (ISSR) data to assess its genetic diversity and structure.