1Division of Bacteriology, Department of Infectious Disease Control and International Medicine, Niigata University Graduate School of Medical and Dental Sciences, Niigata 951-8510, Japan; 2Russia-Japan Center of Microbiology, Epidemiology and Infectious Diseases, Krasnoyarsk State Medical University, Krasnoyarsk 660022; and 3Krasnoyarsk State Medical University named after professor Voyno-Yasen...

Staphylococcus aureus is the most common bacterium present in upper respiratory tract, and the toxins it produced are involved in allergic inflammation pathogenesis. In this study, we investigated the clinical significance of IgE in association with staphylococcal superantigens in allergic asthma with rhinitis (BAwAR) and allergic rhinitis alone (AR). We recruited 100 patients with BAwAR (group...

OBJECTIVES The clinical importance of Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) is attributed to notable virulence factors, surface proteins, toxins, and enzymes as well as the rapid development of drug resistance. The aim of this study was to compare the occurrence of virulence factors produced by S. aureus strains isolated from children in an Iranian referral children's hospital. METHODS The presen...

BACKGROUND Cortisol is an essential hormone in the regulation of the stress response along the HPA axis, and salivary cortisol has been used as a measure of free circulating cortisol levels. Recently, salivary alpha-amylase (sAA) has also emerged as a novel biomarker for psychosocial stress responsiveness within the sympathetic adrenomedullary (SAM) system. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS We measured sAA ...

BACKGROUND Staphylococcus aureus is a harmful pathogen known to express numerous virulence factors and cause severe infections. High levels of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) strains are one of the important healthcare problems because of the inefficient treatment of these infections. OBJECTIVES The purpose of the current study is to evaluate the incidence of the toxic shoc...

Psoriasis (PSO) is a mainly T helper-type 1 (TH(1)) cell mediated chronic inflammatory skin disease characterized by epidermal hyperproliferation and psoriatic plaques. There is ample evidence that stress may trigger psoriatic eruption, however, the underlying mechanisms of stress-induced exacerbation of PSO are poorly understood. The specific goal of the present study was to investigate the im...

The exotoxins produced by Staphylococcus aureus, staphylococcal enterotoxins (SE) A-E and toxic shock syndrome toxin (TSST)-1, which are associated with serious diseases, including food poisoning and toxic shock syndrome, are termed superantigens (SAgs). To examine whether common antigenic epitopes were present and whether vaccination with 1 bacterial SAg could protect against challenge with a ...

This article demonstrates a psychological stress protocol for use in a laboratory setting. Protocols that allow researchers to study the biological pathways of the stress response in health and disease are fundamental to the progress of research in stress and anxiety. Although numerous protocols exist for inducing stress response in the laboratory, many neglect to provide a naturalistic context...

Bacterial pathogens have specific virulence factors (e.g., toxins) that contribute significantly to the virulence and infectivity of microorganisms within the human hosts. Virulence factors are molecules expressed by pathogens that enable colonization, immunoevasion, and immunosuppression, obtaining nutrients from the host or gaining entry into host cells. They can cause pathogenesis by inhibit...

The ability of superantigens (SAGs) to trigger various cellular events via major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class II molecules is largely mediated by their mode of interaction. Having two MHC class II binding sites, staphylococcal enterotoxin A (SEA) is able to dimerize MHC class II molecules on the cell surface and consequently induces cytokine gene expression in human monocytes. In cont...