Hemin-binding proteins as potent markers for serological diagnosis of infections with Bartonella quintana.

It is difficult to distinguish infections with different Bartonella species using commercially available immunofluorescence (indirect immunofluorescent antibody [IFA]) assay kits. To identify appropriate proteins for serodiagnosis of Bartonella quintana infections, we investigated the antigenicity of B. quintana proteins using sera from homeless people with high B.

Antimicrobial and immunomodulatory effect of clarithromycin on macrolide-resistant Mycoplasma pneumoniae.

Macrolide antibiotics are frequently administered to treat mycoplasmal pneumonia. However, macrolide-resistant Mycoplasma pneumoniae has recently been isolated from clinical specimens in Japan. Clarithromycin (CAM) is a 14-membered-ring macrolide that has host immunomodulatory activity.

Identification of a site-specific tyrosine recombinase that mediates promoter inversions of phase-variable mpl lipoprotein genes in Mycoplasma penetrans.

Mycoplasma penetrans has the ability to change its surface lipoprotein profiles frequently. The P35 family lipoproteins encoded by the mpl genes are key players in this profile variation. The M.

Virus infection triggers SUMOylation of IRF3 and IRF7, leading to the negative regulation of type I interferon gene expression.

Viral infection activates Toll-like receptor and RIG-I (retinoic acid-inducible gene I) signaling pathways, leading to phosphorylation of IRF3 (interferon regulatory factor 3) and IRF7 and stimulation of type I interferon (IFN) transcription, a process important for innate immunity. We show that upon vesicular stomatitis virus infection, IRF3 and IRF7 are modified not only by phosphorylation but by the small ubiquitin-related modifiers SUMO1, SUMO2, and SUMO3. SUMOylation of IRF3 and IRF7 was dependent on the activation of Toll-like receptor and RIG-I pathways but not on the IFN-stimulated pathway.

Genotyping analysis of Mycoplasma pneumoniae clinical strains in Japan between 1995 and 2005: type shift phenomenon of M. pneumoniae clinical strains.

Mycoplasma pneumoniae clinical isolates obtained between 1995 and 2005 were examined to determine the prevalent genotype. One hundred and twenty-seven strains isolated from bronchitis and pneumonia patients were genotyped by a PCR-RFLP method based on nucleotide sequence polymorphisms of the p1 gene, which encodes the major adhesin protein. The typing results established that 66 of the isolates were group I strains, 45 were group II strains and 16 were group II variants.

First report on clinical features of Mycoplasma pneumoniae infections in Vietnamese children.

Mycoplasma pneumoniae is a common cause of community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) in children, but there has been no clinical report on M. pneumoniae infections in Vietnamese children. We investigated the clinical features of M.

Quantitative analysis of proliferation and excretion of Bartonella quintana in body lice, Pediculus humanus L.

Although body louse is a well-known vector of trench fever, the growth kinetics of Bartonella quintana in body lice has not been fully understood. We performed a quantitative analysis of bacterial multiplication rate. B.

Comparison of PCR for sputum samples obtained by induced cough and serological tests for diagnosis of Mycoplasma pneumoniae infection in children.

Passive agglutination (PA) and immunoglobulin M (IgM), IgA, and IgG enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISAs) for the diagnosis of Mycoplasma pneumoniae were compared with PCR testing of sputum samples obtained from children with lower respiratory tract infections. The sensitivity and specificity of PA were 80.3% and 92.

Genetic and phenotypic characterization of Haemophilus influenzae type b isolated from children with meningitis and their family members in Vietnam.

To investigate Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) infection in Vietnamese children under the age of 5 years, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples from patients with meningitis were screened for Hib, and isolates were subjected to evaluation of susceptibility to 12 antibiotics, biotyping, and genotyping with pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE). The major biotype was type II (68.3%), followed by type I (22.

Epidemiological studies on Bartonella quintana infections among homeless people in Tokyo, Japan.

In an epidemiological investigation of trench fever in Japan, we compared the seroprevalence of Bartonella quintana in homeless people and in the general population. In homeless rescue outreach programs held in Tokyo from May 2001 to March 2003, 151 blood samples were taken from non-hospitalized homeless people. The prevalence of IgM and IgG antibodies against B.

Clinical evaluation of macrolide-resistant Mycoplasma pneumoniae.

Macrolide-resistant Mycoplasma pneumoniae (MR M. pneumoniae) has been isolated from clinical specimens in Japan since 2000. A comparative study was carried out to determine whether or not macrolides are effective in treating patients infected with MR M.

Characterization and molecular analysis of macrolide-resistant Mycoplasma pneumoniae clinical isolates obtained in Japan.

In recent years, Mycoplasma pneumoniae strains that are clinically resistant to macrolide antibiotics have occasionally been encountered in Japan. Of 76 strains of M. pneumoniae isolated in three different areas in Japan during 2000 to 2003, 13 strains were erythromycin (ERY) resistant.

Use of fluorescent-protein tagging to determine the subcellular localization of mycoplasma pneumoniae proteins encoded by the cytadherence regulatory locus.

Mycoplasma pneumoniae lacks a cell wall but has internal cytoskeleton-like structures that are assumed to support the attachment organelle and asymmetric cell shape of this bacterium. To explore the fine details of the attachment organelle and the cytoskeleton-like structures, a fluorescent-protein tagging technique was applied to visualize the protein components of these structures. The focus was on the four proteins--P65, HMW2, P41, and P24--that are encoded in the crl operon (for "cytadherence regulatory locus"), which is known to be essential for the adherence of M.

Inactivation of macrolides by producers and pathogens.

Inactivation, one of the mechanisms of resistance to macrolide, lincosamide and streptogramin (MLS) antibiotics, appears to be fairly rare in clinical isolates in comparison with target site modification or efflux. However, inactivation is one of the major mechanisms through which macrolide-producing organisms avoid self-damage during antibiotic biosynthesis. The inactivation mechanisms for MLS antibiotics in pathogens are mainly hydrolysis, phosphorylation, glycosylation, reduction, deacylation, nucleotidylation, and acetylation.

Multiple promoter inversions generate surface antigenic variation in Mycoplasma penetrans.

Mycoplasma penetrans is a newly identified species of the genus MYCOPLASMA: It was first isolated from a urine sample from a human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected patient. M. penetrans changes its surface antigen profile with high frequency.

The complete genomic sequence of Mycoplasma penetrans, an intracellular bacterial pathogen in humans.

The complete genomic sequence of an intracellular bacterial pathogen, Mycoplasma penetrans HF-2 strain, was determined. The HF-2 genome consists of a 1 358 633 bp single circular chromosome containing 1038 predicted coding sequences (CDSs), one set of rRNA genes and 30 tRNA genes. Among the 1038 CDSs, 264 predicted proteins are common to the Mycoplasmataceae sequenced thus far and 463 are M.

Identification of fungi based on the nucleotide sequence homology of their internal transcribed spacer 1 (ITS1) region.

In this study, we examined the identification of fungi based on the sequence homology of the internal transcribed spacer 1 (ITS1) region. A newly designed primer pair could amplify the target region of all 42 strains tested. The PCR products were sequenced and the sequence homologies were searched by BLAST.