OBJECTIVE spa-typing of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) has been used widely in clinical diagnostics and epidemiological studies. The aim of this study was to evaluate high-resolution melting (HRM) as a rapid and cost-effective method, to replace DNA-sequencing, for spa-typing in a global collection of 50 MRSA isolates. METHODS The polymorphic X region of the spa gene was a...

We have cloned a novel cDNA (Spa-1) which is little expressed in the quiescent state but induced in the interleukin 2-stimulated cycling state of an interleukin 2-responsive murine lymphoid cell line by differential hybridization. Spa-1 mRNA (3.5 kb) was induced in normal lymphocytes following various types of mitogenic stimulation. In normal organs it is preferentially expressed in both fetal ...

Physical activity is inversely associated with risk of some cancers. The relation with cancer-specific death remains uncertain. Mainly, studies on relationships between physical activity and cancer are based on self-reported physical activity (SPA). Hereby, we examined whether measured cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) is associated with cancer risk, mortality, and case fatality. We also describe...

Suicide Prevention Australia (SPA) is a non-profit, community organisation working as a public health advocate in suicide and self-harm prevention, intervention and postvention. SPA is the only national umbrella body active in suicide prevention throughout Australia, promoting: As a national organisation, SPA supports and assists both individuals and organisations throughout Australia, by promo...

BACKGROUND Staphylococcal protein A (SPA) is a protein of Staphylococcus aureus. Up to now, there have been many studies on the biological activities of SPA. Some reported effects of SPA pretreatment on septic shock in mouse models but there is no study which reports the role of SPA pretreatment on the infected incision. METHODS According to count results, bacterial suspension was set at a de...

In restoring a power system after a major disturbance, system operators often encounter an excessive standing phase angle difference (SPA) between two buses of a circuit breaker when a transmission line is energized and results in a loop closure. Under such a condition, there is high risk of damage to nearby generators and other equipments for the breaker/loop closure operation. Since the SPA v...

In this paper, we propose a simple but powerful on-line availability upgrade mechanism, Supplementary Parity Augmentations (SPA), to address the availability issue for parity-based RAID systems. The basic idea of SPA is to store and update the supplementary parity units on one or a few newly augmented spare disks for on-line RAID systems in the operational mode, thus achieving the goals of impr...

OBJECTIVES To investigate whether anti-Saccharomyces cerevisiae antibodies (ASCA), a marker for Crohn's disease (CD), are present in spondyloarthropathies (SpA) and in the subgroups ankylosing spondylitis (AS), undifferentiated SpA (uSpA), and psoriatic arthritis (PsA), in comparison with healthy and inflammatory controls (patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA)). METHODS ASCA IgA and IgG lev...

Three Good Laboratory Practice safety studies were performed with intravenous injections of highly purified staphylococcal protein A (SPA) in cynomolgus monkeys, in support of a clinical development programme utilizing this protein as an immunomodulator. These studies established a no-observable-adverse-effect level (NOAEL) for up to 12 weekly doses of SPA, as well as toxicokinetic profiles for...