Duckweed (Lemna minor L. Lemnaceae) is a widespread, free-floating aquatic macrophyte, a source of food for waterfowl and a shelter for small aquatic invertebrates. It grows quickly and reproduces faster than other vascular plants. The objective of this study was to determine the antioxidant, antiradical, antimicrobial, and anticandidal activities of duckweed using different in vitro methodolog...

introduction: the aim of this study was to setup, optimize and introduce a sensitive and specific pcr detection method for identification of neisseria meningitidis dna in clinical samples. material and methods: capsular transport gene a (ctra) was selected as a specific target sequence. this primer pair amplifies 101bp of the target gene. neisseria meningitidis strain: atcc; 13090 and neisseria...

BACKGROUND Invasive meningococcal disease is a significant cause of mortality and morbidity in the UK. Administration of chemoprophylaxis to close contacts reduces the risk of a secondary case. However, unnecessary chemoprophylaxis may be associated with adverse reactions, increased antibiotic resistance and removal of organisms, such as Neisseria lactamica, which help to protect against mening...

Neisseria meningitidis is a human pathogen, which, in spite of antibiotic therapy, is still a major cause of mortality due to sepsis and meningitis. Here we describe NadA, a novel surface antigen of N. meningitidis that is present in 52 out of 53 strains of hypervirulent lineages electrophoretic types (ET) ET37, ET5, and cluster A4. The gene is absent in the hypervirulent lineage III, in N. gon...

Meningococcal disease is communicable by close contact or droplet aerosols. Striking features are high case fatality rates and peak incidences of invasive disease in infants, toddlers and adolescents. Vaccine development is hampered by bacterial immune evasion strategies including molecular mimicry.As for Haemophilus influenzae and Streptococcus pneumoniae, no vaccine has therefore been develop...

Strains of Neisseria gonorrhoeae grown on Thayer-Martin medium and media with and without serum were examined by the Phadebact Gonococcus Test. By using the direct method, in which colonies from growth media were mixed directly with the reagents on a microscope slide, Thayer-Martin medium, contrary to the manufacturer's claim, was not found to be the medium giving best results, and presence or ...

The reliability of immunological identification of Neisseria gonorrhoeae using polyclonal and monoclonal antibody coagglutination reagents has been evaluated. When clinical isolates of neisseriae were tested in an "in use" trial the sensitivity and specificity of each reagent were similar and the overall agreement with carbohydrate utilisation was 97.9% (141/144) for the polyclonal antibody rea...

Neisseria gonorrhoeae acetylates its cell wall peptidoglycan (PG) at the C-6 position on N-acetylmuramic acid. To understand the effects of PG acetylation on PG metabolism and release of PG fragments, we have made mutations in the genes responsible for PG acetylation. An insertion mutation in a putative PG acetylase gene (designated pacA) resulted in loss of PG acetylation as detected by a high...