Tuberculosis transmission continues to be a major public health challenge. In this cluster-randomized, controlled trial conducted in Vietnam, active community-wide screening for tuberculosis over 4 ...years is shown to decrease the prevalence of tuberculosis.
The lung microbiome, which is believed to be stable or at least transient in healthy people, is now considered as a poly-microorganism component contributing to disease pathogenesis. Most research ...studies on the respiratory microbiome have focused on bacteria and their impact on lung health, but there is evidence that other non-bacterial organisms, comprising the viruses (virome) and fungi (mycobiome), are also likely to play an important role in healthy people as well as in patients. In the last few years, the lung mycobiome (previously named the fungal microbiota or microbiome) has drawn closer attention. There is growing evidence that the lung mycobiome has a significant impact on clinical outcome of chronic respiratory diseases (CRD) such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, cystic fibrosis, and bronchiectasis. Thanks to advances in culture independent methods, especially next generation sequencing, a number of fungi not detected by culture methods have been molecularly identified in human lungs. It has been shown that the structure and diversity of the lung mycobiome vary in different populations (healthy and different diseased individuals) which could play a role in CRD. Moreover, the link between lung mycobiome and different biomes of other body sites, especially the gut, has also been unraveled. By interacting with the bacteriome and/or virome, the respiratory mycobiome appears to be a cofactor in inflammation and in the host immune response, and therefore may contribute to the decline of the lung function and the disease progression. In this review, we report the recent limited explorations of the human respiratory mycobiome, and discuss the mycobiome's connections with other local microbial communities, as well as the relationships with the different biomes of other body sites. These studies suggest several outlooks for this understudied emerging field, which will certainly call for a renewal of our understanding of pulmonary diseases.
We report herein investigation on crystallization of amorphous molybdenum sulfide a-MoS x induced by electron and laser beam resulting in formation of crystalline molybdenum disulfide c-MoS2. This ...crystallization occurred in situ during transmission electron microscopic and Raman analyses of a-MoS x material. It was also found that a-MoS x to c-MoS2 phase transformation was not fully beneficial for H2-evolving catalytic performance. c-MoS2 showed better robustness but significantly lower catalytic performance. Furthermore, c-MoS2 was less tolerant to oxidation stress, as the one caused by photogenerated holes within the light harvester, compared with a-MoS x catalyst. Thus, a-MoS x is a better candidate for implementation within photocatalysts for overall solar water-splitting application.
This work aims to synthesize akaganeite nanoparticles (AKNPs) by using microwave and use them to adsorb Congo red dye (CR) from the aqueous solution. The AKNPs with an average particle size of about ...50 nm in width and 100 nm in length could be fabricated in 20 min. The effects of pH, CR initial concentration, adsorption time, and adsorbent dosage on the adsorption process were investigated and the artificial neural network (ANN) was used to analyze the adsorption data. The various ANN structures were examined in training the data to find the optimal model. The structure with training function, TRAINLM; adaptation learning function, LARNGDM; transfer function, LOGSIG (in hidden layer) and PURELIN (in output layer); and 10 neutrons in hidden layer having the highest correlation (
R
2
= 0.996) and the lowest MSE (4.405) is the optimal ANN structure. The consistency between the experimental data and the data predicted by the ANN model showed that the behavior of the adsorption process of CR onto AKNPs under different conditions can be estimated by the ANN model. The adsorption kinetics was studied by fitting the data into pseudo-first-order, pseudo-second-order, Elovich, and intraparticle diffusion models. The results showed that the adsorption kinetics obeyed the pseudo-second-order model and governed by several steps. The adsorption isotherms at the different temperatures were studied by fitting the data to Langmuir, Freundlich, and Temkin isotherm models. The
R
2
obtained from the Langmuir model was above 0.9 and the highest value in three of four temperatures, suggesting that the adsorption isotherms were the best fit to the Langmuir model and the maximum adsorption capacity was estimated to be more than 150 mg/g. Thermodynamic studies suggested that the adsorption of CR onto AKNPs was a spontaneous and endothermic process and physicochemical adsorption. The obtained results indicated the potential application of microwave-synthesize AKNPs for removing organic dyes from aqueous solutions.
In 2019, the South African tuberculosis program replaced ethionamide with linezolid as a part of an all-oral 9-month regimen. We evaluated treatment outcomes for patients assigned to regimens ...including linezolid in 2019 and ethionamide in 2017.
This retrospective cohort study included patients treated for multi-drug resistant/rifampicin-resistant tuberculosis throughout South Africa between 1 Jan to 31 Dec 2017 and from 1 Jan to 31 Dec 2019. The cohort treated with a 9-month regimen containing ethionamide for four months, was compared with a cohort treated with a 9-month regimen containing linezolid for two months. The regimens were otherwise identical. Inverse probability weighting of propensity scores was used to adjust for potential confounding. A log-binomial regression model was used to estimate adjusted relative risk (aRR) comparing 24-month outcomes between cohorts including treatment success, death, loss to follow up, and treatment failure. Adverse event data were available for the linezolid cohort.
817 patients were included in the cohort receiving ethionamide and 4244 in the cohort receiving linezolid. No evidence for a difference was observed between linezolid and ethionamide regimens for treatment success (aRR = 0·96, 95%CI 0·91-1·01), death (aRR = 1·01, 95%CI 0·87-1·17) or treatment failure (aRR = 0·87, 95%CI 0·44-1·75). Loss to follow up was more common in the linezolid group, although estimates were imprecise (aRR = 1·22, 95%CI 0·99-1·50).
No significant differences in treatment success and survival were observed with substitution of linezolid for ethionamide as a part of an all-oral 9-month regimen. Linezolid is an acceptable alternative to ethionamide in this shorter regimen for treatment of multi-drug resistant/rifampicin resistant tuberculosis.
Poor sleep negatively affects hormones that govern the food reward system and can interfere with weight-loss programs. Obesity in turn restricts sleep. Which treatments have shown promise?
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Isolation of the soil bacterium Burkholderia pseudomallei from tropical environments is important to generate a global risk map for man and animals to acquire the infectious disease melioidosis. ...There is increasing evidence, that the currently recommended soil culture protocol using threonine-basal salt solution with colistin (TBSS-C50) for enrichment of B. pseudomallei and Ashdown agar for subsequent subculture lacks sensitivity. We therefore investigated, if the otherwise rarely encountered erythritol catabolism of B. pseudomallei might be exploited to improve isolation of this bacterium from soil.
Based on TBSS-C50, we designed a new colistin-containing medium with erythritol as the single carbon source (EM). This medium was validated in various culture protocols by analyzing 80 soil samples from 16 different rice fields in Vietnam. B. pseudomallei enrichment was determined in all culture supernatants by a specific quantitative PCR (qPCR) targeting the type three secretion system 1. 51 out of 80 (63.8%) soil samples gave a positive qPCR signal in at least one of the culture conditions. We observed a significantly higher enrichment shown by lower median cycle threshold values for B. pseudomallei in a two-step culture with TBSS-C50 for 48 h followed by EM for 96h compared to single cultures in TBSS-C50 for either 48h or 144h (p<0.0001, respectively). Accordingly, B. pseudomallei could be isolated on Ashdown agar in 58.8% (30/51) of samples after subcultures from our novel two-step enrichment culture compared to only 9.8% (5/51) after standard enrichment with TBSS-C50 for 48h (p<0.0001) or 25.5% (13/51; p<0.01) after TBSS-C50 for 144h.
In the present study, we show that specific exploitation of B. pseudomallei metabolic capabilities in enrichment protocols leads to a significantly improved isolation rate of this pathogen from soil compared to established standard procedures. Our new culture method might help to facilitate the creation of environmental risk maps for melioidosis in the future.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
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