Urinary‐based infections affect millions of people worldwide. Such bacterial infections are mainly caused by Escherichia coli (E. coli) biofilm formation in the bladder and/or urinary catheters. ...Herein, the authors present a hybrid enzyme/photocatalytic microrobot, based on urease‐immobilized TiO2/CdS nanotube bundles, that can swim in urea as a biocompatible fuel and respond to visible light. Upon illumination for 2 h, these microrobots are able to remove almost 90% of bacterial biofilm, due to the generation of reactive radicals, while bare TiO2/CdS photocatalysts (non‐motile) or urease‐coated microrobots in the dark do not show any toxic effect. These results indicate a synergistic effect between the self‐propulsion provided by the enzyme and the photocatalytic activity induced under light stimuli. This work provides a photo‐biocatalytic approach for the design of efficient light‐driven microrobots with promising applications in microbiology and biomedicine.
Biohybrid enzyme/photocatalyst‐based microrobot structure for the efficient removal of a bacterial biofilm is presented. TiO2 nanotube bundles are decorated with CdS nanoparticles and enzyme urease. This design provides a strategy for developing advanced photoresponsive microrobots with improved catalytic activity, offering great potential for the future applications of micromachines.
OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the bacteriological profile and antibiotic susceptibility in patients with urinary tract infections. METHODOLOGY: This retrospective study with a cross-sectional design was ...held at Dow University of Health Sciences, Karachi; we evaluated records of patients from January to December 2020 at the Department of Microbiology, Dow Diagnostic Reference and Research Laboratory, Karachi, who requested urine culture due to urinary tract infection. Details such as the most common bacteria, specific antibiotic susceptibility and resistance with all demographic information were recorded. RESULTS: A total of 57785 samples were collected, of which 19620 were positive. The highest bacterial contaminations of the urinary region were detected among Females. E.coli remains a dominant pathogen that affects all age groups and genders, followed by Klebsiella, Acinetobacter, Enterobacter and Proteus. The most resistant drugs observed in our study were cefixime and cefuroxime, followed by ampicillin and Cotrimoxazole. The most sensitive and minor resistant drug against isolates is Colistin, followed by Amikacin and nitrofurantoin. CONCLUSION: It is among the studies with significant findings and delivers essential data regarding bacterial trends. Current research can be compared with other studies for antimicrobial susceptibility approaches of pathogens and helps us decide on empirical treatment of UTIs. Parallel analysis should be designed on a large scale in diverse areas and regions, forming empiric antibiotic therapy guidelines according to the local antimicrobial susceptibility pattern, which helps improve patient outcomes and unjudicial antibiotic use.
Objective. To analyze the effectiveness of an educational intervention among nursing professionals and caregivers to prevent urinary tract infections in institutionalized elderly people. Methods. ...this is a quasi-experimental study carried out with 20 people (7 nurses and 13 formal caregivers). A questionnaire was applied during the pre-intervention stage, then professional training was carried out and finally, the questionnaire was reapplied 6 months after the intervention. The prevalence profile and factors associated with urinary infections in 116 elderly people was evaluated before and after the educational interventions. Statistical analysis was performed using association and correlation tests, logistic regression model comparison and prevalence rates. Results. The average number of correct answers by the nursing professionals and caregivers after the educational intervention increased from the pre to the post-test by 52% regarding signs of urinary infection, 32% regarding its symptoms, 72.5% regarding its treatment, 40% regarding personal/behavioral and morbidity-related risk factors, 59% regarding conditional factors and 43.8% regarding its preventive measures. The team of caregivers showed a greater gain in knowledge compared to the nursing team in almost every question (p<0.05). The length of time working in elderly care showed no positive correlation with any variable (R<1; p>0.05). The prevalence of urinary tract infection in the pre-intervention period was 33.62%, and 20% in the post-intervention period. Conclusion. The educational intervention was effective in preventing urinary tract infections in the elderly. The increased knowledge acquired by nurses and caregivers was associated with a reduction in the infection rate and an improvement in the most prevalent modifiable factors for the development of this type of pathology.
Recurrent urinary tract infections (RUTIs) and recurrent vulvovaginal candidiasis (RVVCs) represent major healthcare problems all over the world. Antibiotics and antifungals are widely used for such ...infectious diseases, which is linked with microbial resistances and microbiota deleterious effects. The development of novel approaches for genitourinary tract infections (GUTIs) such as trained immunity-based vaccines (TIbV) is therefore highly required. MV140 is a sublingual whole-cell heat-inactivated polybacterial preparation with demonstrated clinical efficacy for RUTIs. The sublingual heat-inactivated
vaccine V132 has been developed for RVVCs. We previously showed that the combination of MV140 and V132 promotes potent Th1/Th17 and regulatory T-cell responses against antigens contained in the formulation and unrelated antigens. The specific contribution of each preparation to such effects and the underlying molecular mechanisms remain incompletely understood.
PBMC and monocytes were isolated from healthy donors and
stimulated with V132, MV140 or MV140/V132. After 6 days of resting, cells were reestimulated with LPS and MV140. Analysis of cytokine production by ELISA, Seahorse assays for functional metabolic experiments and chromatin immunoprecipitation assays were performed. BALB/c mice were intraperitoneally and sublingually immunized with V132.
We uncover that V132 induces trained immunity in human PBMCs and purified monocytes, significantly increasing the responses triggered by subsequent stimulation with MV140. Mechanistically, V132 drives metabolic rewiring towards increased glycolysis and oxidative phosphorylation and induces epigenetic reprogramming that enhances the transcription of the pro-inflammatory genes
and
. Splenocytes and peritoneal cells from V132-immunize mice show increased responses upon
stimulation with MV140. Remarkably, splenocytes from sublingually V132-immunized and MV140
treatment mice show stronger Th17 responses than mice exposed to excipients upon
stimulation with MV140.
Overall, we provide novel mechanistic insights into how V132-induced trained immunity enhances both innate and adaptive immune responses triggered by MV140, which might open the door for new interventions for GUTIs with important clinical implications.
This study aimed to determine the effectiveness of whole-cell bacterial immunotherapy, i.e. MV140 and autovaccines, in reducing the number ofurinary tract infections (UTIs)in frail elderly patients ...with recurrent UTI (RUTI).
A prospective cohort observational study was performed including 200 frail elderly subjects suffering RUTI, both females and males, between 2016 and 2018. The effectiveness of autovaccines and the polybacterial formulation MV140 (Uromune®), consisting ofwhole-cell heat-inactivated Escherichia coli25%, Klebsiella pneumoniae25%, Proteus vulgaris25% andEnterococcus faecalis25% were evaluated. Subjects initiated a 3-month sublingually daily course with MV140 or autovaccine, either first treatment or a new course if they had been previously vaccinated prior to inclusion in the study. Number of UTIs and quality of life (QoL, SF-36 score) were measured in the different study groups.
The mean age for participants was 82.67 (SD, 7.12) for female and 80.23 (SD, 11.12) for male subjects. In all groups, 12 months following bacterial immunotherapy, the number of UTIs significantly decreased compared to before the treatment with autovaccine or MV140: the rate of reduction ranged between 7- and 40-fold. An increase in QoL scoring was also observed in any study group. When comparing medical interventions, MV140 conferred significantly higher benefit than autovaccines. For previously vaccinated individuals, a new 3-month course with MV140 or autovaccines provided further clinical improvement.
MV140 and autovaccines emerge as valuable immunoprophylaxis for the management of RUTI in the frail elderly, contributing to an improvement in patient’s quality of life. Herein, MV140 has shown to confer a higher effectiveness compared to autovaccines, regardless sex or course of treatment.
Background and Objectives: Urinary tract infections occur through the colonization of microbes in the urinary tract. One of the major challenges in the antibacterial treatment of these infections is ...an increase in antibiotic resistance. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of bacterial agents causing urinary infections and its antibiotic resistance patterns in patients referred to Shohada hospital in Khorramabad. Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 740 bacterial isolates were isolated and detected from urinary culture in Shohada Hospital of Khorramabad during one year (2016-2017). Antibiotic sensitivity pattern was measured by disc diffusion method. Results were analyzed using STATA-12 software. Results: The highest isolate was Escherichia coli (61.43%) and the least frequent was related to Citrobacer (0.27%). Isolated Escherichia coli had most resistance to nalidixic acid (54.18%). Isolates that picked up in different parts of the hospital showed the highest resistance to cotrimoxazole. Conclusions: Antibiotic resistance is high in isolates that picked up from urine culture of patients. Since, distribution of antibiotic resistance is variable in different regions and periods of time, periodic monitoring of antibiotic resistance is recommended to control the infection.
Resumen Las carbapenemasas son uno de los mecanismos enzimáticos de resistencia antimicrobiana, que compromete la mayor parte de los antibióticos betalactámicos. Por lo general, su producción se debe ...al uso indiscriminado de antimicrobianos. A nivel mundial, la expansión de este mecanismo de resistencia es inminente y las medidas de control son limitadas. Con el objeto de discutir los problemas relacionados a este mecanismo emergente de resistencia, reportamos un caso de Klebsiella pneumoniae productora de carbapenemasas en Huancayo, la Región de la Sierra Central de Perú.
La infección urinaria es una entidad clínica común, con alta prevalencia a nivel mundial y que supone un alto costo financiero a los sistemas de salud. Esta enfermedad surge con más frecuencia en ...mujeres y se sabe que 50 a 80% de las mujeres de la población general se contagia de una infección urinaria como mínimo, en toda su vida. Además, el promedio de recurrencia en mujeres es de 2.6 infecciones urinarias al año lo cual hace de suma importancia el conocimiento sobre las estrategias terapéuticas disponibles para el manejo y prevención de estas infecciones. Existen varias terapias con alta evidencia para la prevención de la recurrencia de las infecciones urinarias, dentro de estas se encuentran la profilaxis antibiótica continua y postcoital, la vacuna oral y el reemplazo estrogénico vía vaginal en la mujer postmenopáusica. Siempre se debe tener en cuenta el daño colateral que produce la terapia antibiótica y la aparición de problemas crecientes como la resistencia antibiótica, lo cual ha generado nuevas alternativas no-antibióticas para el tratamiento y la profilaxis de las infecciones urinarias recurrentes. Si bien algunos resultados de estos estudios son prometedores, aún falta evidencia para poder dar una recomendación firme sobre estos. El objetivo de este artículo es hacer una revisión de la infección urinaria recurrente en la mujer, considerando su epidemiología, patogenia, tratamiento y prevención de la recurrencia, haciendo énfasis en estos dos últimos puntos.
To examine the effects of bowel management on the frequency of urinary infections in spina bifida patients.
The research was carried out from 2014 to 2017, with the recruitment process from June 2014 ...to March 2016. The first group consisted of 35 patients who were administered bowel management combined with anticholinergic medication therapy and clean intermittent catheterization (CIC). The second group consisted of 35 patients who were treated only with anticholinergic medication therapy and CIC. Bowel management included daily enema, laxative application, and a special diet, with a view to treating constipation that was estimated on the basis of Roma III criteria and echosonographically determined transversal rectal diameter. The effects of the administered bowel management on urinary infections were estimated on the basis of the number of urinary infections before and after the administered therapy. The observation period of every patient was 1 year.
There were no significant statistical differences regarding age, gender, and baseline clinical features between the two groups. In the group treated with bowel management combined with anticholinergic medication therapy and CIC, the average number of urinary infections was 0.3 ± 0.5 SD, whereas in the group treated exclusively with anticholinergic medication therapy and CIC the average number of urinary infections was 1.1 ± 1.0 SD. There was a statistical difference regarding urinary infections, that is the average number of urinary infections between these two groups of patients (p < 0.001).
Administering bowel management considerably decreases the frequency of urinary infections, and should form an integral part of treatment of spina bifida patients. Display omitted
PDF
