Th2 immune response by the iron-regulated protein HupB of Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

Background: HupB is an iron-regulated protein essential for the growth of Mycobacterium tuberculosis inside macrophages. To investigate if HupB induced a dominant Th2 type immune response, we studied the effect of rHupB on PBMCs from TB patients and by infecting mouse macrophages with wild type and hupB KO mutants.

Methods: PBMCs from pulmonary TB (n = 60), extra pulmonary TB (n = 23) and healthy controls (n = 30) were stimulated with purified HupB and the cytokines secreted were assayed.

Rapid antimicrobial susceptibility profiling using impedance spectroscopy.

The present antibiotic susceptibility testing (AST) techniques based on bacterial culture, gene amplification and mass spectrometry are highly time consuming, labour intensive or expensive. Impedance spectroscopy is an emerging tool for rapid bacterial analysis as it is label-free, real-time, affordable and high-throughput. The over-reliance of this technique on complex chip designs and cell enrichment strategies has, however, slowed its foray into clinical AST.

Case of positional dyspnoea and hypoxia secondary to intracardiac shunting.

Platypnea-orthodexia syndrome (POS) is a rare but well-characterised condition where hypoxaemia and breathlessness occur while upright but resolve once recumbent. Early recognition can result in excellent outcomes for patients and can prevent unnecessary investigations for patients, especially if they present repeatedly to hospital after missed diagnosis. We present a case of a 75-year-old woman with a chronic history of breathlessness who was picked up after observations at a routine outpatient clinic.

Alternative cause for hypoglycaemia in insulin-treated diabetes mellitus.

We present a case of a 73-year-old woman who developed recurrent hypoglycaemia during a prolonged hospital stay following a mechanical fall. She had a complex history of insulin-treated diabetes mellitus, hypothyroidism, diffuse systemic cutaneous sclerosis, Raynaud's disease, previous breast cancer, Barrett's oesophagus and previous partial gastrectomy for a benign mass. Hypoglycaemia persisted despite weaning of insulin.

ε-Polylysine Nanoconjugates: Value-Added Antimicrobials for Drug-Resistant Bacteria.

Antimicrobial resistance poses a serious threat to human health and is evidently not restricted to any one part of the globe. Over the last few decades, no new antibiotics have been discovered, and many antibiotics currently available are failing against several critical pathogenic strains due to emerging drug resistance. We have designed a strategy to combat deadly drug-resistant bacteria by using nanocargos that consist of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) conjugated to ε-polylysine (PLL) and octadecanethiol (C18) either alone or in combination.