It is unclear whether the predominance of one or more Bacillus species in this bee yard is related to the lower actinomycete diversity in the guts of the bees. One location that has a few isolated beehives was chosen to continue monitoring of actinomycetes diversity every 3 months in a year. Antibiotic activity against the bee indigenous Bacillus strains or E. coli was measured using an agar diffusion assay. The details were described in the methods. Positive results were interpreted as defensive rather than as nutritional interactions between the microorganisms because the actinomycetes were already in

late growth stage when used in the assay and the test selleck chemicals organisms were microorganisms with shorter doubling times under the assay conditions. Potential competitive growth

disadvantage of the test organisms like the Bacillus strains and E. coli can thus be ruled out with confidence. Also, it has been argued that actinomycetes in insects are predisposed toward engaging in defensive antagonism (Kaltenpoth, 2009). The B. marisflavi isolate identified in the initial experiment was used as a Gram-positive organism for the primary screening in the following survey because it seemed to be the most sensitive to the antibiotic activities produced by the actinomycete isolates. For understanding the seasonal changes in actinomycete diversity in honeybee guts, at least 40 bees were collected from the chosen bee yard four times during the year. At the times of December 5th (winter), MK-2206 datasheet April 21st (spring), July 16th (summer) and September 30th (fall) from 2008 to 2009, the gut microbial communities were assumed to be most influenced by the seasonal changes. AIA with supplements was used as the selleck main selective medium (see Materials and methods). Over 70% of the bees in any one of the four seasons carried at least one CFU of actinomycete in their guts (Fig. 2). In some cases, thousands of conspicuous

actinomycete colonies were found in a single honeybee (Fig. 1a). Between 28% and 58% of the bees at this location produced at least one actinomycete isolate with detectable bioactivities (Fig. 2). The highest diversity of actinomycetes was found in honeybees collected in the summer, and the lowest in the winter (Fig. 2). Of the 401 actinomycete isolates obtained, 163 isolates exhibited bioactivity against the bee indigenous B. marisflavi strain (Fig. 2). All except four of the 163 bioactive isolates had no observable effect on the growth of E. coli. Only one of the total 401 isolates showed exclusive antagonism against E. coli. Therefore, there appeared to be a specificity of the bioactivities produced by the actinomycetes from honeybee guts.

The total cell envelopes obtained from 50 mL cultures were suspended in 200 μL of water, and treated with an equal volume of 90% phenol at 65 °C for 15 min, followed by centrifugation at 16 000 g. The aqueous phase was extracted once with ethyl ether and mixed in a 1 : 1 ratio with a tracking dye solution (125 mM Tris-HCl, pH 6.8, 2% SDS, 20% glycerol, 0.002% bromophenol blue and 10% mercaptoethanol), and then boiled for 5 min. The lipopolysaccharides FK506 datasheet were loaded onto a 15% polyacrylamide gel containing 4 M urea and the gel was stained by silver staining solution. The kanR from pUC4K was inserted into the BglII site of pYJ-2 to disrupt MSMEG_4947, yielding pYJ-3

(Table 1). pYJ-3 was digested by SpeI and NotI and the DNA fragment of MSMEG_4947∷kanR was ligated to the SpeI and NotI sites of pPR27-xylE to yield a conditional replication plasmid

pYJ-4 (Table 1). pYJ-1 was digested by NdeI and BamHI and Rv1302 was ligated to the NdeI and BamHI sites of pET23b-Phsp60 to generate pYJ-5 (Table 1). pYJ-5 was digested by XbaI and BamHI and the Phsp60-Rv1302 was ligated to the XbaI and BamHI sites of pCG76 to yield a rescue plasmid pYJ-6 (Table 1). Mycobacterium smegmatis mc2155 electrocompetent cells were prepared as described Ivacaftor molecular weight (Pelicic et al., 1996). The pYJ-4 was electroporated to the competent cells with Electroporator 2510 (Eppendorf). Transformants were grown on LB agar plates containing kanamycin and gentamicin at 30 °C. One colony was propagated in LB broth containing 0.05% Tween 80, kanamycin and gentamicin at 30 °C and the cells were spread on LB agar plates containing kanamycin and gentamicin at 42 °C. The mc2155 mutant strains with the first single crossover event were selected using a Southern Thiamine-diphosphate kinase blot, as described (Li et al., 2006). The rescue plasmid pYJ-6

was electroporated into the mc2155 mutant. Transformants were grown on LB agar plates containing kanamycin and streptomycin at 30 °C. One colony was inoculated into LB broth containing kanamycin and streptomycin, and incubated at 30 °C. The cells were spread on an LB agar plate containing 10% sucrose, kanamycin and streptomycin. The MSMEG_4947 knockout mutant strains (Table 1) with the second single crossover event were selected via a Southern blot. Five MSMEG_4947 knockout mutants (nos 1–5) were inoculated into LB broth containing 0.05% Tween 80 and appropriate antibiotics, and incubated at both 30 and 42 °C. The wild-type mc2155 carrying pCG76 was used as a control. A600 nm was detected at intervals of 24 h and the growth curves at both 30 and 42 °C were obtained. The MSMEG_4947 knockout mutant (no. 2) was grown in LB broth containing 0.05% Tween 80 and kanamycin at 30 °C for 24 h (A600 nm was 0.064), and then transferred to a 42 °C incubator for continuous growth. The cells grown at 42 °C for 72 and 144 h were harvested and fixed in ice-cold 2.5% glutaraldehyde.

Recently, Skogedal et al.2 demonstrated that caries can be successfully prevented in patients with RDEB

by continuous follow-up aimed at dietary advice, oral hygiene habits, frequent professional cleaning, and fluoride therapy. 1)  To prevent and treat pain and infection. This is important considering that patients with oral pain will reduce their nutritional intake. The clinic must be of easy access for patients using wheelchairs and walking frames. Allow patients to accommodate on their own giving them enough time. Do not try to assist them if you are not aware of the areas where they have wounds. If the patient has to travel a long distance to attend the specialist dentist in the EB unit, a shared care GSK-3 inhibitor review approach can be arranged with a local dentist, who can provide more regular preventative care. Access to dental care can be a challenge for some patients. Even though in most developed countries it is guaranteed, it is still a privilege for many patients around the world. There is a lack of knowledge about the disease in the dental profession9 and other healthcare professionals. Dental care can be complicated by the fears of both the patient and the dentist10. Allow yourself plenty of time. Even the most simple procedures, such as an oral exam, takes longer because of the limited access, discomfort, or fear of developing blisters secondary to soft tissue manipulation. Members

of the multidisciplinary team should refer patients to the dentist before oral problems Selleckchem Temozolomide present, as early referral and close follow-up are the key to keeping patients as healthy as possible from the oral point of view (Image 1). Patients with EB should be 2-hydroxyphytanoyl-CoA lyase referred to the dentist for the first consultation at the age of 3–6 months. The first consultation should be aimed at: (a)  Education of the parents and caregivers: counselling on diet (including sugar-free medications), oral hygiene routines, fluorides, technical aids, and oral manifestations of EB. This preventative advice should be provided even before the teeth erupt (Image 2). Patients with EB should be referred to a dentist as early

as possible to identify any feature related to EB that needs special attention, for example, generalized enamel hypoplasia5,10-13. This enables dentists to start preventive programmes and reduces the risk of developing dental diseases14. Many case reports have shown that patients visit the dentist only when they already have several carious lesions or pain7,11,15,16. Although oral bullae, ulcers, and erosions are the most common oral feature of EB, there is only one published study of a therapy for these oral lesions. Marini et al.17 found that sucralfate suspension reduced the development and duration of oral mucosal blisters and ulcers, reduced the associated oral pain, and improved plaque and gingival inflammation indices17. Oral Hygiene.

Amphetamine use was significantly correlated with insertive and receptive anal sex, and cocaine use only with insertive anal intercourse. There was no significant association of sexual risk behaviour and moderate alcohol consumption and benzodiazepine use (see Table 4 for details). In the immediate context of sexual activity, multiple drug use as well as use of cannabis and amylnitrite by the patients and by their partners was common (Table 5). Drinking alcohol until drunkenness and consumption of illicit drugs in the direct context of sexual activity were significantly associated with all definitions of sexual risk

behaviour, both for patients and for their sexual partners (Table 6). In this study, the association of substance use and sexual risk behaviour was investigated in HIV-infected PI3K inhibitor MSM currently in specialized care. In this sample, the majority of subjects had not consumed

psychoactive substances (apart from alcohol) in the last 12 months or in their lifetime. However, a substantial number of the participants had used psychoactive substances in the past 12 months; for example, 20–25% of the participants had used amyl nitrite, cannabis or alcohol until drunkenness. Eleven per cent had taken erectile dysfunction medication, mostly without medical prescription. A further seven per cent had used amphetamines and four per cent cocaine. The prevalences of alcohol-related STAT inhibitor disorders in the study sample and in the general male population are comparable: in Germany, 3.4% of the general male population fulfil the criteria for alcohol addiction and 6.4% those for harmful use

of alcohol [40]. The respective figures in Ribose-5-phosphate isomerase the study sample were 3.9 and 4.3%. In contrast, the prevalences of cannabis addiction (4.5%) and harmful use (4.3%) were higher than in the general population (respective figures 0.6 and 1.2% [40]). Current harmful use of dissociatives was reported by 0.4% of subjects. There are no population-based data available regarding these drugs. However, it has to be assumed that dissociative drugs are currently a specific phenomenon in the MSM party community. Illicit drugs and heavy alcohol use are associated with sexual risk behaviour. Substance users are more likely to report unprotected sexual activity. In our study, moderate alcohol use was not a risk factor for unprotected sex, in contrast to previous findings in the literature [31, 33, 36], whereas for heavy drinking our findings are concordant with those of previous studies [12, 41]. For illicit drugs, club drugs and ‘sex-associated’ substances (e.g. erectile dysfunction medication and amyl nitrite), we also found a significant relationship between drug consumption and sexual risk behaviour, concordant with previous findings in HIV-positive MSM samples [31, 34, 35].

Complex environmental sounds evoke widespread auditory-driven cortical activity including parietal and frontal brain regions between 50 and 100 ms post-stimulus (Murray et al., 2006; DeLucia et al., 2010; Spierer et al., 2011). As

cortical stimulus processing seems both fast and efficient, Pessoa & Adolphs (2010) proposed an early role of the cortex in the evaluation of a stimulus’ Selleck Maraviroc affective significance. In line with this proposal, we believe that rapid and highly differentiating emotional processing under challenging processing conditions before 100 ms, as previously shown for the visual and auditory system, is both feasible and likely. In our opinion, the present null finding therefore

has to be interpreted in terms of a lack of statistical power or an insufficient signal-to-noise ratio of the MEG recordings at this early time-stage. In fact, amplitudes for the P20–50m are much smaller than for the N1m and are thus more susceptible to intra- and interindividual variance of neural network activity, masking small conditioning effects in the earlier, but to a lesser degree in the later, time-window of interest. Also, statistical power of the effect might have been generally reduced in the shock-conditioning Everolimus paradigm as compared to the auditory scene conditioning study, as only a single (instead of multiple) and a crossmodal (instead of unimodal) UCS was used to which subjects presumably showed stronger habituation as a consequence of the more frequent UCS presentations, potentially weakening the affective association with the conditioned tones. Notably, in the two auditory as well as in three visual affective MultiCS conditioning studies that used multiple neutral Tryptophan synthase faces paired with an aversive odour,

an acoustic shock or an electric shock (reviewed in Steinberg et al., 2012b), the prefrontal cortex was consistently activated in early affect-specific neural processing. In the aversive learning paradigms, prefrontal cortex activity was particularly amplified in the right hemisphere for CS+ processing. This observation is corroborated by a large and growing body of evidence that assigns to the prefrontal cortex a general and essential role in guiding action and organising behaviour according to present motivational states or goal orientation (Adolphs, 2002; Philipps et al., 2003) and predicts a specific involvement of the right hemisphere in the presence of aversive stimulation or negative affect (Davidson & Irwin, 1999). As past research has implicated the prefrontal cortex not only in the top-down modulation of emotion processing as part of a distributed neural network supporting motivated attention mechanisms but also in the acquisition, storage and extinction of emotional memories (e.g. Davis, 1992; LeDoux, 1996; Phelps et al.

The effect of HIV coinfection MAPK Inhibitor Library concentration on the risk of cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma in U.S. veterans with hepatitis C. Am J Gastroenterol 2005; 100: 56–63. 26  Tedaldi E, Peters L, Neuhaus J et al. Opportunistic disease and mortality in patients coinfected with hepatitis B or C virus in the strategic management of antiretroviral therapy (SMART) study. Clin Infect Dis 2008; 47: 1468–1475. 27  van der Helm J, Geskus R, Sabin C et al. Effect of HCV infection on cause-specific mortality after HIV seroconversion, before and after 1997. Gastroenterology 2013; 144: 751–760. 28  Smit C, van den Berg C, Geskus R, Berkhout B, Coutinho R, Prins M. Risk

of hepatitis-related mortality increased among hepatitis C virus/HIV-coinfected drug users compared with drug users infected only with hepatitis C virus: a 20-year prospective study. J Acquir Immune Defic Syndr 2008; 47: 221–225. ubiquitin-Proteasome degradation 29  Weber R, Ruppik M, Rickenbach M et al. for the Swiss HIV Cohort Study (SHCS). Decreasing mortality and changing patterns of causes of death in the Swiss HIV Cohort Study. HIV Med 2013: 14: 195–207. 30  Thomson EC, Nastouli E, Main J et al. Delayed anti-HCV antibody

response in HIV-positive men acutely infected with HCV. AIDS 2009; 23: 89–93. 31  Nastouli E, Thomson EC, Karayiannis P, Main J, McClure MO, Muir D. Diagnosing acute hepatitis C in HIV-infected patients: Nucleic acid testing compared with antibody and antigen–antibody detecting methods. J Clin Virol 2009; 44: 78–80. 32  Yaphe S, Bozinoff N, Kyle R, Shivkumar S, Pai NP, Klein M. Incidence of acute hepatitis C virus infection among men who have sex with men with and without HIV infection: a

systematic review. Sex Transm Infect 2012; 88: 558–564. 33  Gamage DG, Read TR, Bradshaw CS et al. Incidence of hepatitis-C among HIV infected men who have sex with men (MSM) attending a sexual health BCKDHB service: a cohort study. BMC Infect Dis 2011; 11: 39. 34  Lambers FA, Prins M, Thomas X et al. Alarming incidence of hepatitis C virus re-infection after treatment of sexually acquired acute hepatitis C virus infection in HIV-infected MSM. AIDS 2011; 25: F21–F27. 35  Larsen C, Chaix ML, Le Strat Y et al. Gaining greater insight into HCV emergence in HIV-infected men who have sex with men: the HEPAIG Study. PLoS ONE 2011; 6: e29322. 36  Jones R, Brown D, Nelson M et al. Re-emergent hepatitis C viremia after apparent clearance in HIV-positive men who have sex with men: reinfection or late recurrence? J Acquir Immune Defic Syndr 2010; 53: 547–550 (and correction JAIDS 2010; 54; 112). 37  Peters L, Mocroft A, Soriano V et al. Hepatitis C virus reappearance in HIV-infected patients with spontaneous HCV-RNA clearance. J Hepatol 2009; 50(Suppl 1): S155. 38  Martin T, Martin N, Hickman M et al. HCV reinfection incidence among HIV-positive men who have sex with men. 19th Annual Conference of the British HIV Association. Manchester, UK. April 2013 [Abstract O7].

In a tributyrin assay, we observed that mutation D47A or D47E did not affect the halo (Fig. 5), strongly suggesting that this position is not phosphorylated during signalling. In contrast, mutation of D52 to alanine abrogates lipase activity, pointing out that D52 needs

to be phosphorylated for LipR regulatory activity. Interestingly, mutation D52E restores the halo. This indicates that the glutamate can mimic B-Raf cancer the phosphorylated aspartate as was suggested for NtrC (Klose et al., 1993). In conclusion, transcription of lipA in P. alcaligenes is regulated by the combined action of σ54 and response regulator LipR. Further analysis of the system is likely to offer ICG-001 order new possibilities to steer the lipase production levels to a higher scale and will contribute to a further understanding of this important class of

bacterial enhancer-binding proteins. We thank Dr Susanne Wilhelm for providing us the pTZ110 vector, and Valerie R. Wiersma and Marjolein Garsen for their assistance in mutagenesis and analysis of LipR. This research was sponsored by EU grant QLK3-CT-2002-02086 and MEST-CT-2005-020. R.H.C. was partly supported by the European Community Initiative Interreg IIIA and W.Q. partly by KOP-EFRO. Part of this work was published as a dissertation: (http://dissertations.ub.rug.nl/FILES/faculties/science/2009/j.k.krzeslak/04c4.pdf) “
“Because of the emergence of strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis resistant to first-line antituberculosis agents, one of the second-line drugs, p-aminosalicylate (PAS), has regained importance

in the treatment of tuberculosis. The mode of action of PAS, however, remains controversial as to whether it inhibits mycobactin or folate biosynthesis. To unravel this, we have studied the effect of PAS on wild-type Mycobacterium smegmatis and its mutants (gene knockouts of the salicylate pathway –trpE2, entC and entD). The wild type had no sensitivity to PAS (MIC>400 μg mL−1), whereas the mutants were hypersensitive, with 1 μg mL−1 inhibiting growth. The sulphonamides, trimethoprim and dapsone, had little effect on the growth of either the mutants Gemcitabine manufacturer or the wild type. In addition, PAS at 0.5 μg mL−1 increased the accumulation of salicylate with the wild type and mutants. These results support our hypothesis that PAS targets the conversion of salicylate to mycobactin, thus preventing iron acquisition from the host. Because of the emergence of strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis that are resistant to currently used drugs, both singly and as multidrug combination therapies, new chemotherapeutic targets need to be identified and thus new drugs need to be created.

The cultivation medium contained the following (g L−1): (NH4)2SO4, 0.3; CaCl2 · 6H2O, 0.05; MgSO4 · 7H2O, 0.1; NaHCO3, 0.3; 10% phosphate buffer (pH 7.0), 0.1; HEPES buffer (pH 7.0), 3.0; KNO3, 0.3; CH3COONa; 0.15; vitamins and trace elements (Pfennig & Lippert, 1966); agar (Difco), 5.0; pH 6.7 at 30 °C. Before inoculation, 0.2 mL of a freshly Vemurafenib clinical trial prepared FeS suspension (Hanert, 1981) was added to each tube per 10 mL of the medium. The incubation time was 2–3 weeks. The FOB strain Sp-1 was isolated

by terminal 10-fold dilutions in the same agar medium. The colonies were then transferred into liquid medium. Cultivation of the strain Sp-1 and subsequent experiments were carried out in liquid mineral media in anaerobic conditions and in media

supplemented with acetate (when FeSO4 was used as an electron donor). The methods of cells morphology and ultrastructure selleck screening library investigation, cultural, analytical and biochemical methods as well as genetic, phylogenetic and chemotaxonomic methods were described earlier (Sorokina et al., 2012). The polar lipids were analysed by thin-layer chromatography (Kieselgel 60, 10 × 10 cm; Merck, Germany) using the phospholipid standards (Sigma; Bej et al., 1991). All experiments were performed at least three times, in the figures and tables are average results of representative experiments. The number of FOB in the spring water did not exceed 10 cells mL−1, while in the freshly precipitated FeS sediment at the spring outlet, it was as high as 105–107 cells mL−1. The freshly precipitated FeS sediment collected at the border of the redox zone was used as the inoculum. In agar medium, the bacteria formed small (2–3 mm in diameter), loose spherical colonies. The colonies were orange-coloured because of the presence of iron oxides. In liquid medium of the same composition, an

ochreous precipitate was formed at the bottom of the vials. The pure culture of FOB was isolated with 10-fold dilutions of the individual colonies under anaerobic conditions in liquid medium with FeS and nitrates. The cells of strain Sp-1 were short thin vibrios, 0.3 × 0.8–1.3 μm, motile because of a single polar flagellum (Fig. 1a and c). The cells divided by binary fission. On the surface of the cells grown with Fe(II), iron oxides were Calpain accumulated (Fig. 1b and d). The Gram reaction was negative. The heavy incrustation of the cells by iron oxides raises a question whether it stops active metabolism and further growth. Despite several suggestions circulating in the literature on possible mechanisms of dealing with the inhibitory influence of iron incrustation on growth and metabolism of anaerobic FOB (Sobolev & Roden, 2001, 2002; Schippers & Jørgensen, 2002; Kappler & Newman, 2004), we believe that the formation of amorphous iron oxides does not significantly influence diffusion of nutrients and cell growth in this group.

, 2006); it is assumed that the malate generated inside any selleck products of these organelles can be transported into the cytosol. Opposed to T. brucei, the insect stage of T. cruzi can only produce malate inside the glycosome and the mitochondrion, as in this parasite the cytosolic malate dehydrogenase (MDH) is replaced by an aromatic 2-hydroxyacid dehydrogenase that is unable to catalyze the reduction of oxaloacetate into malate (Cazzulo Franke et al., 1999). Besides, the expression of the glycosomal and mitochondrial MDHs is developmentally regulated in the American trypanosome, the glycosomal isozyme being downregulated in T. cruzi amastigotes. By contrast, the mitochondrial MDH (mMDH)

is expressed throughout the whole life cycle of parasite, and at the protein level the enzyme seems to be more abundant in amastigotes. Also, the mitochondrial aspartate aminotransferase is expressed in all T. cruzi stages, but appeared to be more

abundant in the intracellular amastigotes (Marciano et al., 2008). Although in T. cruzi amastigotes, l-aspartate is transaminated into oxaloacetate in the mitochondrion and the cytosol, the latter is converted into malate only through the action of mMDH. As the malate produced in the mitochondrion can be easily exported into the cytosol, this metabolite can serve as a substrate for both the mitochondrial and the cytosolic MEs. In summary, in T. cruzi the cytosolic level of malate is determined by the metabolic activity within BAY 57-1293 chemical structure the mitochondrion. This hypothesis fits in well with early reports that postulated that in T. cruzi,

amino acids are actively metabolized in the mitochondrion, generating the precursors needed for energy production as well as the intermediates required for metabolic processes that occur in the cytosol (Tielens & Van Hellemond, 1998). This work was performed with grants from Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET), Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA, B-094) and Agencia Nacional de Promoción Científica y Tecnológica (Argentina). C.N. and J.J.C. are members of the Isotretinoin Research Career from CONICET, A.E.L. is supported by a fellowship from CONICET and D.A.M. by a fellowship from the Universidad Nacional de General San Martin. Fig. S1. Sequence alignment of MEs from Trypanosoma cruzi and Trypanosoma brucei with selected orthologues from higher eukaryotes linked to NAD and NADP coenzymes. Putative malic enzymes from trypanosomes were aligned with Homo sapiens mitochondrial NAD-dependent malic enzyme (MAOM_HUMAN, Genebank accession number P23368) and pigeon cytosolic NADP-dependent malic enzyme (MAOX_COLLI, Genebank accession number P40927) using ClustalX default settings. T. brucei putative MEs (TbME1, Gene ID Tb11.02.3130 and TbME2, Gene ID Tb11.02.3120), T. cruzi putative MEs (TcME1a, Gene ID Tc00.1047053505183.20, TcME1b, Gene ID Tc00.1047053508647.270, TcME2a, Gene ID Tc00.

The nleB gene, which was seen in all our SF O157, has recently been reported to be highly associated with virulent EHEC and EPEC seropathotypes (Bugarel et al., 2011). Additionally, all SF O157 carried the stcE gene encoding a metalloprotease shown to promote the intimate adherence

and inhibit the inflammatory system (Szabady et al., 2009). However, both nleB and stcE are also common in NSF O157 (Szabady et al., 2009; Bugarel et al., 2011). MLVA genotyping selleck chemicals llc and data from MSIS indicate that the cases of SF O157 infection recorded in Norway before 2009 were sporadic. However, in the period 2009 through May 2011, SF O157 was isolated from 16 children, of whom 11 developed HUS. The isolates fell into one distinct MLVA cluster (cluster D), indicating a common source of infection. However, like unsuccessful attempts to identify the source and the reservoir of SF O157 in other countries (Allerberger et al., 2000; Karch & Bielaszewska, 2001; Allison, 2002; Editorial Team, 2006; Eklund et al., 2006; Jakubczak et al., 2008; Buvens et al., 2009), the source in the Norwegian cases could not be determined despite a considerable amount of work invested (Norwegian Institute of Public Health, 2010). In conclusion, all the Norwegian SF O157 showed a NVP-BEZ235 purchase distinct q gene, as well as different genes upstream of the stx2EDL933 gene compared to the NSF O157:H7 strain EDL933 (AE005174). This indicated that Norwegian SF O157 harboured

divergent stx2EDL933-encoding bacteriophages compared to the NSF O157 strain EDL933 (AE005174). The SF O157 carried a q gene identical to the q gene in O111:H− strain 11128 (AP010960). Interestingly, different DNA sequences were observed within the region sequenced in the three SF O157 strains (FR874039-41), Amrubicin suggesting that considerable diversity exists among stx2EDL933-encoding bacteriophages also within the SF O157 group. It is possible that the qO111:H− gene identified in SF O157 contributes to the increased virulence seen in SF O157 compared to NSF O157. However, further investigations are needed to elucidate the activity of the QO111:H− protein in SF O157. We have developed an assay for detecting the qO111:H− gene in SF O157,

and this might be a useful supplement to differentiate SF O157 from NSF O157. “
“Shewanella oneidensis MR-1 has conventionally been considered unable to use glucose as a carbon substrate for growth. The genome sequence of S. oneidensis MR-1 however suggests the ability to use glucose. Here, we demonstrate that during initial glucose exposure, S. oneidensis MR-1 quickly and frequently gains the ability to utilize glucose as a sole carbon source, in contrast to wild-type S. oneidensis, which cannot immediately use glucose as a sole carbon substrate. High-performance liquid chromatography and 14C glucose tracer studies confirm the disappearance in cultures and assimilation and respiration, respectively, of glucose. The relatively short time frame with which S.