Streptococcal pharyngitis, rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease: Eight-year prospective surveillance in Rupnagar district of Punjab, India.

Background: Rheumatic fever (RF)/rheumatic heart disease (RHD) continue to be a neglected public health priority. We carried out a registry-based control project, prospective surveillance and sample surveys to estimate the burden of disease.

Methods: We trained healthcare providers and established a surveillance system for the 1.

55 kDa outer-membrane protein from short-chain fatty acids exposed Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi induces apoptosis in macrophages.

Various pathogens including Salmonella species are known to induce apoptosis in host cell types during their infection processes. However, the bacterial components capable of inducing apoptosis have not been fully understood. It is now known that in vivo expression of virulence determinants differ from the expression under in vitro conditions.

Shiga toxin exposure modulates intestinal brush border membrane functional proteins in rabbit ileum.

The activities of lactase, sucrase and alkaline phosphatase (AP) were studied in intestinal brush border membranes of control and toxin-treated rabbits. Purified Shiga toxin (Stx) exposure to ileal mucosa inhibited activities of brush border enzymes by 50%. Kinetic analysis revealed that the observed decrease in BBM enzyme activities was due to reduced V(max) with no change in the affinity constants of the systems.

Macrophage cell death due to Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi and its acid stress protein has features of apoptosis.

Salmonella spp. have been shown to cause apoptosis of various host cell types as a part of their infection process. However, the induction of apoptosis remains to be looked into under the different host environments including acidic stress experienced by the pathogen.

Reactivity of typhoid patients sera with stress induced 55 kDa phenotype in Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi.

Salmonella faces a variety of stresses including acid and heat, in the natural environment whether in the gastrointestinal tract of mammalian host or in the external environment during transmission where survival and multiplication is a priority for the pathogen. In the present study, Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi was grown under acid (inorganic and organic) as well as heat stress and the outermembrane protein (OMP) profiles were compared. A 55 kDa OMP was found to be expressed with high intensity under the selected stress conditions in comparison to normal conditions.

Evaluation of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for diagnosing Haemophilus influenzae b meningitis.

A polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for detecting Hib in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) was evaluated and compared with culture and a latex agglutination test (LAT) in a hospital-based prospective surveillance. We studied 107 children aged from 1 month to 12 years with a clinical and CSF profile suggestive of acute bacterial meningitis. CSF culture was performed on blood-chocolate agar by standard technique, LAT by a commercially available kit (Wellcogen) and PCR using total DNA extracted from CSF samples.