Possible utilization of salivary IFN-γ/IL-4 ratio as a marker of chronic stress in healthy individuals.

Introduction: Several studies show that psychological stress reduces Th1/Th2 ratio in blood samples. However, evidence is scarce regarding the cytokine alterations during stress in saliva. We investigated the influence of chronic stress on Th1/Th2 ratio and cytokine profiles in the saliva of healthy individuals.

[Relationship between Clostridium difficile ITS-PCR Type and Pathogenicity].

Clostridium difficile (C. difficile) causes antibiotic-associated diarrhea and nosocomial infection. The PCR of internal transcribed spacer regions (ITS) is easily conductible in a relatively short time.

[Molecular epidemiology of the Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus(MRSA) by the internal transcribed spacer PCR (ITS-PCR) method and the phage open reading frame typing (POT) method].

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is the most common causative bacteria of hospital acquired infection, and should be rapidly identified for infection control. For this purpose, in our hospital, the PCR electrophoresis patterns of spacer regions (ITS: internal transcribed spacers) (ITS-PCR) are combined with a toxigenicity assay to establish a strain identification method for outbreak surveillance. In the present study, the usefulness of this method was evaluated in comparison with the POT (phage-open reading frame typing) method.

[Trends for the etiology of infective endocarditis at our hospital these 5 years].

The aim of this study is to evaluate characteristics of infective endocarditis for 5 years at Kanazawa University Hospital. Retrospectively, we investigated 39 patients diagnosed as infective endocarditis at our hospital from 2006 to 2010 based on blood culture and/or rejected cardiac specimens. Of 39 patients with infective endocarditis, 27 were male and 12 were female.

Rapid identification of gram-negative bacteria with and without CTX-M extended-spectrum β-lactamase from positive blood culture bottles by PCR followed by microchip gel electrophoresis.

We evaluated the usefulness of PCR analysis of the 16S-23S rRNA gene internal transcribed spacer (ITS) and the CTX-M extended-spectrum β-lactamase (ESBL) followed by microchip gel electrophoresis (MGE) for direct identification and CTX-M detection of Gram-negative bacteria (GNB) from positive blood culture bottles. Of 251 GNB isolated from blood cultures containing a single bacterium, 225 (90%) were correctly identified at the species level directly from positive blood culture bottles by comparing the ITS-PCR patterns of the sample strain with those of the control strains. There were no cases of incorrect identification.