Jundishapur Journal of Microbiology
Volume:14 Issue: 10, Oct 2021

At present, there is no report that the intestinal flora of pregnant women with mild thalassemia is different from that of healthy pregnant women.

This study compared the composition and changes of the intestinal flora of pregnant women with mild thalassemia to those of healthy pregnant women using metagenomic sequencing technology and evaluated the potential microecological risk for pregnant women and the fetus.

The present study was carried out on 14 mild thalassemia pregnant women with similar backgrounds in the Affiliated Hospital of Putian University, Fujian, China. In the same period, 6 healthy pregnant women were selected as the control group. The genomic deoxyribonucleic acid was extracted from the sable stool samples of pregnant women. Illumina HiSeq sequencing technology was adopted after library preparation. Prodigal software (ver 2.6.3, Salmon software (ver 1.6.0, and Kraken software (ver 2) were used to analyze the sequence data. Moreover, analysis of variance and Duncan’s multiple-comparison test or Wilcoxon rank-sum test were used as statistical methods.

The characteristics of the intestinal flora of pregnant women with mild thalassemia differed significantly from those of healthy pregnant women, showing an increase in some conditionally pathogenic bacteria (e.g., Prevotella stercorea rose and Escherichia coli) and a decrease in some probiotic bacteria, which might affect pregnant women and cause physiological function damage to their offspring by changing metabolic pathways; however, further validation is needed.

The diversity and composition of intestinal flora in pregnant women with mild thalassemia vary significantly from those in healthy pregnant women, especially at the genus and species levels, representing more profound alterations in intestinal microecology.

There is a high worldwide prevalence of chronic Hepatitis B Virus (HBV) and Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) infections, among the significant causes of liver-related morbidity and mortality.

We aimed to determine the prevalence of HBV and HCV in a referral center hospital in Southeast Anatolia among patients that applied for major or minimally invasive surgery.

In a tertiary referral state hospital for general purposes, patients undergoing surgical procedures and serologic examinations for HBV and HCV were included in the study between January 2011 and September 2020.

In the general population, hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) and anti-HBs were examined in 220,724 patients, and anti-HCV was examined in 186,017 patients. The mean age was 42.3 ± 20.2 years with a 51.8% male distribution. The frequency of positive HBsAg and anti-HCV in all patients was 9.4 and 0.9%, respectively. On the other hand, the frequency of positive HBsAg and anti-HCV was 4.2 and 0.7%, respectively, among patients admitted for a surgical procedure. The mean age was 46.1 ± 21.1 years with a slightly male predominance (54 vs. 46%). In this group, the frequency of positive HBsAg was higher in males (5.1%) while the lowest was in the 1 - 10 age range (0.4%) and the highest in the 41 - 50 age range (5.7%). Between 2011 and 2019, the prevalence of HBsAg positivity decreased from 6.4 to 4.0%, while anti-HCV positivity was similar in both genders, and its frequency increased with age.

Between 2011 and 2020, the overall prevalence of HBV and HCV decreased in the Southeast Anatolia Region of Turkey.

The emergence of antibiotic-resistant Staphylococcus aureus strains is one of the major concerns about the various staphylococcal infections. Vancomycin is one the most important effective antibiotics on staphylococcal lethal infections. To date, vancomycin-resistant strains are increasingly isolated in different parts of the world, and it is alerting.

The current study was designed to evaluate the prevalence, and antibiotic susceptibility pattern of methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) and vancomycin-resistant S. aureus (VRSA) isolates in the main tertiary hospital of Bojnurd, Iran.

Staphylococcus aureus isolates were collected from different clinical samples in Imam Reza Hospital of Bojnurd. After identification of isolates through using conventional methods, they were evaluated by agar screening, disk diffusion, and minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) methods to determine resistance to vancomycin and methicillin. We also performed polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for the detection of mecA, mecC, vanA, and vanB genes. After confirmation of vancomycin resistance, genetic analysis was performed using SCCmec, agr, and spa typing, and multilocus sequence typing (MLST) methods on VRSA isolates.

We found four vancomycin-resistant isolates (1.29%). Also, 75% of isolates were resistant to cefoxitin. Using the PCR method, mecA was found in 73%, mecC in 0.64%, and vanA in 1.29% of isolates. Interestingly, we found two mecC positive isolates in MRSA isolates. The alpha-hemolysin (81.81%) and enterotoxin C (27%) had the highest and lowest toxins percentage, respectively. Among mecA positive isolates, SCCmec IV (37%), SCCmec III (31.27%), SCCmec I (14%), SCCmec II (11%), and SCCmec V (5.7%) were the most prevalent SCCmec types, respectively. It should be noted that the two mecC positive isolates belonged to SCCmec XI. Agr I (76.29%) was the highest agr type. We recognized t037 as the dominant spa type, and ST239, ST6, ST97, and ST8 were found in VRSA isolates.

In our study, the frequency of mecA genes in MRSA isolates was very high. It seems that the resistant isolates belonged to endemic clones of Iran.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection may trigger a cytokine storm, which is characterized by uncontrolled overproduction of proinflammatory cytokines.

We aimed to investigate the association between circulating levels of inflammatory cytokines and severity of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

This cross-sectional study included 46 severe and 32 mildly symptomatic COVID-19 patients. The serum levels of cytokines and chemokines were determined using the Bio-Plex ProTM Human Cytokine Screening Panel.

Out of a total of 78 patients with confirmed COVID-19, 54 (69.2%) were males, and 24 (30.8%) were females. The mean age was 43.1 ± 13.3 and 58.2 ± 15 in mild and severe patients, respectively. Severe patients were characterized by significant laboratory abnormalities, such as increased WBC (P = 0.002) and neutrophil counts (P = 0.001), higher levels of ALT (P = 0.03), AST (P = 0.002), LDH (P < 0.001), urea (P = 0.013), ferritin (P < 0.001), D-dimer (P = 0.042), CRP (P < 0.001), and decreased lymphocyte (P < 0.001) and platelet (P = 0.045) counts. The levels of IL-6, IL-8, IL-13, TNF-α, IFN-γ, MIP-1β, and MCP-1 increased in the severe group compared to the mild group. However, significant differences were observed only for IL-6 (P < 0.001) and IL-8 (P < 0.001) levels.

Serum IL-6 and IL-8 levels can be used as potential prognostic biomarkers of disease severity in COVID-19 patients.

Escherichia coli in the vagina includes several virulence factors in its genome mobile genetic elements and can facilitate colonization, mainly in immunosuppressed patients.

This work aimed to demonstrate that E. coli strains of vaginal origin isolated from dysplastic patients possess virulence and resistance genes

This study included one hundred and five E. coli strains isolated from women with cervical dysplasia and vaginal infection. The strains were characterized by antimicrobial susceptibility. The Clermont algorithm performed the phylogenetic assignment. The structure of class 1 integrons was performed by identifying integrase (int1), the variable region, and qacEΔ1-sul1 genes. The variable region was amplified, sequenced, and analyzed. Enterobacterial repetitive intergenic consensus (ERIC) PCR and virus typing typed strains with identical genetic arrangements by detecting virulence genes related to cytotoxicity, adherence, and iron uptake.

Escherichia coli strains showed great resistance to β-lactams and quinolones, and phylogenetic assignment showed that the group A/C was highly predominant. Sixteen integrons were identified, with monogenic arrays represented by aadA1, dfrB4dfrA7, dfr2D, and dfrA17 cassettes. The prevalence of the biogenic arrays aadA1/dfrA1 and aadA5/dfrA17 was lower than that of blaOXA-1/aadA1. Concerning virulence genes, fimH, traT, and iutA were the most predominant.

The high incidence of virulence and resistance factors in commensal and virulent strains of E. coli revealed potential tools in the pathogenesis of vaginal infection.

Anti-hepatitis C virus (anti-HCV) is the only screening test being used in the diagnosis of hepatitis C. In this study, we examined anti-HCV positivity rates in our hospital.

The aim of administering the anti-HCV test was to distinguish patients with hepatitis C infection from false positivity in patients with reactive results.

The anti-HCV tests were performed at Fatih Sultan Mehmet Training and Research Hospital in Istanbul, Turkey, between January 1, 2015 and December 31, 2019. The patients were evaluated retrospectively in terms of age, gender, anti-HCV titer, the clinic for which the examination was requested, the reason for the examination, and the history of hepatitis C.

In this study, 511 patients who had two negative polymerase chain reaction (PCR) results were evaluated as false positive cases and enrolled. The cut-off value was found to be 7.5 IU/ml, with the highest sensitivity of 94.4% and specificity of 94.5% (area under the curve [AUC]: 0.982). The lowest anti-HCV titer (5.2) was from patients without acute hepatitis, who were HCV-RNA positive and diagnosed with chronic hepatitis C.

It may be more appropriate to report anti-HCV cut-off value of 0 - 5 as negative, 5 - 7.5 as borderline, and > 7.5 as positive. Working with a more acceptable cut-off level with a greater number of tests can help identify patients with asymptomatic HCV infection. Also, it can possibly reduce the cost due to a decrease in the number of PCR tests administered.