Monitoring alpha-cypermethrin susceptibility of Phlebotomus argentipes, the vector of visceral leishmaniasis in India, using the CDC bottle bioassay.

Background: Visceral leishmaniasis (VL), known as Kala-azar on the Indian subcontinent, is a parasitic disease caused by the flagellated protozoa Leishmania donovani and can be fatal if left untreated. The sand fly Phlebotomus argentipes is the only proven vector of VL in the Southeast Asia region, and VL control in this region has relied on the use of synthetic insecticides for indoor residual spraying (IRS). The use of DDT in VL control programmes has led to the development of resistance to this insecticide in sand flies, resulting in DDT being replaced with the insecticide alpha-cypermethrin.

Dogs as Reservoirs for Leishmania donovani, Bihar, India, 2018-2022.

Visceral leishmaniasis derived from Leishmania donovani is transmitted by sand flies (Phlebotomus argentipes) throughout the Indian subcontinent. Although considered anthroponotic, L. donovani infects other mammals susceptible to sand fly bites, including dogs.

Effect of Vaccination on COVID-19 Severity and Outcome: A Comparative Study in a Tertiary Care Hospital.

Introduction: Vaccination is an important aspect of preventing/decreasing the severity of any viral disease including severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV2). This disease being very new in the experience of mankind has very little data on the effect of vaccination on the severity of this disease. We conducted this study with the primary objective to assess the severity and clinical outcome of COVID-19 infections among nonvaccinated and vaccinated individuals.

Toward Atomistic Understanding of Iron Phosphate Glass: A First-Principles-Based Density Functional Theory Modeling and Study of Its Physical Properties.

Iron phosphate glasses (IPGs) have been proposed as futuristic materials for nuclear waste immobilization and anode materials for lithium batteries. Recently, many attempts have been made to propose atomistic models of IPGs to explain their properties from an atomistic viewpoint. In this paper, we seek to produce small scale models of IPG that can be handled within the scheme of density functional theory (DFT) to study its electronic structure.

A Prospective Study of Surgical Site Infection with its Risk Factors and Their Correlation with the NNIS Risk Index.

Background: Surgical site infection (SSI) is the third most commonly reported nosocomial infection, accounting for 10%-40% of all nosocomial infections and is a major cause of postoperative morbidity. Knowledge of factors related to SSI can help in reducing its incidence and related morbidity, which in many studies is shown to account for 38% of all infections in surgical patients. Lack of extending nosocomial infection surveillance programme and prevention measures in countries like India is viewed as a major challenge for the future.

A -specific adhesin, Scf1 governs surface association, colonization, and virulence.

is an emerging fungal pathogen responsible for health care-associated outbreaks that arise from persistent surface and skin colonization. We characterized the arsenal of adhesins used by and discovered an uncharacterized adhesin, Surface Colonization Factor (Scf1), and a conserved adhesin, Iff4109, that are essential for the colonization of inert surfaces and mammalian hosts. is apparently specific to , and its expression mediates adhesion to inert and biological surfaces across isolates from all five clades.

Candida albicans stimulates formation of a multi-receptor complex that mediates epithelial cell invasion during oropharyngeal infection.

Fungal invasion of the oral epithelium is central to the pathogenesis of oropharyngeal candidiasis (OPC). Candida albicans invades the oral epithelium by receptor-induced endocytosis but this process is incompletely understood. We found that C.

Correction: Assessing insecticide susceptibility, diagnostic dose and time for the sand fly Phlebotomus argentipes, the vector of visceral leishmaniasis in India, using the CDC bottle bioassay.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pntd.

stimulates the formation of a multi-receptor complex that mediates epithelial cell invasion during oropharyngeal infection.

Unlabelled: Fungal invasion of the oral epithelium is central to the pathogenesis of oropharyngeal candidiasis (OPC). invades the oral epithelium by receptor-induced endocytosis but this process is incompletely understood. We found that infection of oral epithelial cells induces c-Met to form a multi-protein complex with E-cadherin and the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR).

Protective Efficacy of Anti-Hyr1p Monoclonal Antibody against Systemic Candidiasis Due to Multi-Drug-Resistant .

is a multi-drug-resistant fungal pathogen that can survive outside the host and can easily spread and colonize the healthcare environment, medical devices, and human skin. causes serious life-threatening infections (up to 60% mortality) in immunosuppressed patients staying in such contaminated healthcare facilities. Some isolates of are resistant to virtually all clinically available antifungal drugs.

Livestock and rodents within an endemic focus of Visceral Leishmaniasis are not reservoir hosts for Leishmania donovani.

Leishmaniasis on the Indian subcontinent is thought to have an anthroponotic transmission cycle. There is no direct evidence that a mammalian host other than humans can be infected with Leishmania donovani and transmit infection to the sand fly vector. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the impact of sand fly feeding on other domestic species and provide clinical evidence regarding possible non-human reservoirs through experimental sand fly feeding on cows, water buffalo goats and rodents.

Niclosamide-loaded nanoparticles disrupt Candida biofilms and protect mice from mucosal candidiasis.

Candida albicans biofilms are a complex multilayer community of cells that are resistant to almost all classes of antifungal drugs. The bottommost layers of biofilms experience nutrient limitation where C. albicans cells are required to respire.

Antibodies targeting Als3 and Hyr1 antigens protect neonatal mice from candidiasis.

Pre-term infants in neonatal intensive care units are vulnerable to fungal sepsis. In this patient population, remains the predominant fungal pathogen causing high morbidity and mortality, despite antifungal therapy. Thus, new preventative/therapeutic strategies against neonatal candidiasis are needed.

Serum bridging molecules drive candidal invasion of human but not mouse endothelial cells.

During hematogenously disseminated candidiasis, blood borne fungi must invade the endothelial cells that line the blood vessels to infect the deep tissues. Although Candida albicans, which forms hyphae, readily invades endothelial cells, other medically important species of Candida are poorly invasive in standard in vitro assays and have low virulence in immunocompetent mouse models of disseminated infection. Here, we show that Candida glabrata, Candida tropicalis, Candida parapsilosis, and Candida krusei can bind to vitronectin and high molecular weight kininogen present in human serum.

Acute Flaccid Quadriparesis Because of a Rare Systemic Cause.

Sjogren's syndrome is a chronic slowly progressive autoimmune disease characterized by lymphocytic infiltration of exocrine glands resulting in xerostomia and dry eyes. The syndrome has wide clinical spectrum from organ specific exocrionopathy to systemic manifestation. The disease can present alone or with other autoimmune diseases like RA, SLE, Scleroderma, autoimmune thyroid disease etc.

Combination treatment of liposomal amphotericin B and isavuconazole is synergistic in treating experimental mucormycosis.

Objectives: Liposomal amphotericin B (L-AMB) and isavuconazonium sulphate are commonly used antifungal drugs to treat mucormycosis. However, the efficacy of combination therapy of L-AMB/isavuconazonium sulphate versus monotherapy is unknown. We used an immunosuppressed mouse model of pulmonary mucormycosis to compare the efficacy of L-AMB/isavuconazonium sulphate versus either drug alone.

Adaptive immunity induces mutualism between commensal eukaryotes.

Pathogenic fungi reside in the intestinal microbiota but rarely cause disease. Little is known about the interactions between fungi and the immune system that promote commensalism. Here we investigate the role of adaptive immunity in promoting mutual interactions between fungi and host.

2-D self-healable polyaniline-polypyrrole nanoflakes based triboelectric nanogenerator for self-powered solar light photo detector with DFT study.

This work demonstrates an easy and cost-effective synthesis of PANI-PPY conducting nanoflakes (NFs) with a self-healing capability. Scanning electron microscopic (SEM) analysis shows the minimum width of NFs as 30 nm, while HRTEM analysis confirms the shape, size, and semi-crystalline nature of the polymer. These PANI-PPY NFs were used to fabricate a contact separation mode triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) based self-powered photosensor which gave the maximum output voltage (149 V), maximum output current (16 µA), current density 0.

An evolutionarily diverged mitochondrial protein controls biofilm growth and virulence in Candida albicans.

A forward genetic screening approach identified orf19.2500 as a gene controlling Candida albicans biofilm dispersal and biofilm detachment. Three-dimensional (3D) protein modeling and bioinformatics revealed that orf19.

Xenodiagnosis to evaluate the infectiousness of humans to sandflies in an area endemic for visceral leishmaniasis in Bihar, India: a transmission-dynamics study.

Background: Visceral leishmaniasis, also known on the Indian subcontinent as kala-azar, is a fatal form of leishmaniasis caused by the protozoan parasite and transmitted by the bites of the vector sandfly . To achieve and sustain elimination of visceral leishmaniasis, the transmission potential of individuals exposed to from across the infection spectrum needs to be elucidated. The aim of this study was to evaluate the relative infectiousness to the sandfly vector of patients with visceral leishmaniasis or post-kala-azar dermal leishmaniasis, before and after treatment, and individuals with asymptomatic infection.

Mucoricin is a ricin-like toxin that is critical for the pathogenesis of mucormycosis.

Fungi of the order Mucorales cause mucormycosis, a lethal infection with an incompletely understood pathogenesis. We demonstrate that Mucorales fungi produce a toxin, which plays a central role in virulence. Polyclonal antibodies against this toxin inhibit its ability to damage human cells in vitro and prevent hypovolemic shock, organ necrosis and death in mice with mucormycosis.

An oxindole efflux inhibitor potentiates azoles and impairs virulence in the fungal pathogen Candida auris.

Candida auris is an emerging fungal pathogen that exhibits resistance to multiple drugs, including the most commonly prescribed antifungal, fluconazole. Here, we use a combinatorial screening approach to identify a bis-benzodioxolylindolinone (azoffluxin) that synergizes with fluconazole against C. auris.

Molecular crosstalk: Notch can manipulate Hes1 and miR-9 behavior.

We propose a Hes1-Notch-miR-9 regulatory network and studied the regulating mechanism of miR-9 and Hes1 dynamics driven by Notch. Change in Notch concentration, which serves as a stress signal, can trigger the dynamics of Hes1 and miR-9 at five different states, namely, sTable (2), sustain (1) and mixed (2) states those may correspond to different cellular states. Further, this Notch stress signal introduce time reversal oscillation, which behaves as backward wave, after a certain threshold value of the stress signal and defends the system from moving to apoptosis.