The susceptibilities of clinical vancomycin-intermediate Staphylococcus aureus (VISA), heterogeneous VISA, and laboratory-generated linezolid-resistant S. aureus strains to the new oxazolidinone AZD2563 were assessed by agar dilution MIC determination. All clinical strains were susceptible to linezolid, and the linezolid MICs for them were equal to or twofold higher than those of AZD2563. Cross...

Invasive heteroresistant vancomycin-intermediate Staphylococcus aureus (h-VISA) isolates were identified and characterized in 10 Korean hospitals from July 2009 to June 2011. The prevalence of h-VISA infections was 3.3% (42/1,289). Most (41/42) were health care-associated infections caused by strains belonging to sequence type 5. Cases of persistent bacteremia were frequent (17/42), and 30-day ...

This study assessed the in vitro activities of ceftaroline and five comparator agents against a collection of Staphylococcus aureus isolates. Ceftaroline demonstrated potent activity against community-associated methicillin-resistant S. aureus (CA-MRSA) isolates and showed bactericidal activity against vancomycin-intermediate S. aureus (VISA), vancomycin-resistant S. aureus (VRSA), heteroresist...

BACKGROUND The development of non-susceptibility to glycopeptides and daptomycin in MRSA during persistent bacteraemia has become a significant therapeutic challenge. However, the in vivo evolution and mechanism of the dual resistance have remained incompletely understood. METHODS A series of MRSA blood isolates with incremental non-susceptibility to glycopeptides and daptomycin were consecut...

We found an increased abundance of pbpB-specific transcripts in vancomycin intermediate-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (VISA) isolates compared with that found in paired, genetically identical, susceptible isolates. This difference in expression cannot be explained by differences in the pbpB promoter sequence. Since the factors controlling pbpB gene expression have remained largely unexplored,...

OBJECTIVE To compare the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of eccentric loading exercises (ELE) with prolotherapy injections used singly and in combination for painful Achilles tendinosis. DESIGN A single-blinded randomised clinical trial. The primary outcome measure was the VISA-A questionnaire with a minimum clinically important change (MCIC) of 20 points. SETTING Five Australian prima...

Breast cancer is a major public health problem all over the world, and the current treatment strategies are not potent enough for some patients, especially those with triple-negative breast cancer. Therefore, novel and more effective treatments are critically needed. Of the current methods, targeted therapy, which not only retains cancer-specific expression but also limits toxicity, is a new st...

Motivated by the difficulty of biometric systems to correctly match fingerprints with poor image quality, we formulate and solve a game-theoretic formulation of the identification problem in two settings: U.S. visa applicants are checked against a list of visa holders to detect visa fraud, and visitors entering the U.S. are checked against a watchlist of criminals and suspected terrorists. For ...

The evolution of Staphylococcus aureus during the modern antibiotic era has been delineated by distinct strain emergence events, many of which include acquisition of antibiotic resistance. The relative high burden of methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) in healthcare and community settings is a major concern worldwide. Vancomycin, a glycopeptide antibiotic that inhibits cell wall biosynthesis...

Retinoic acid-inducible gene-I (RIG-I)-like receptors (RLRs), such as RIG-I, melanoma differentiation-associated gene 5 (MDA5), and virus-induced signaling adaptor (VISA), are intracellular molecules that sense diverse viral RNAs and trigger immune responses. In this study, we demonstrate that the ankyrin repeat protein ankrd17 interacts with RIG-I, MDA5, and VISA and upregulates RLR-mediated i...