CA-MRSA infection, driven by the emergence of the USA300 genetic background, has become epidemic in the United States. USA300 isolates are hypervirulent, compared with other CA- and HA-MRSA strains, in experimental models of necrotizing pneumonia and skin infection. Interestingly, USA300 isolates also have increased expression of core genomic global regulatory and virulence factor genes, includ...

Staphylococcus aureus produces a wide array of cell surface and extracellular proteins involved in virulence. Expression of these virulence factors is tightly controlled by numerous regulatory loci, including agr, sar, sigB, sae, and arl, as well as by a number of proteins with homology to SarA. Rot (repressor of toxins), a SarA homologue, was previously identified in a library of transposon-in...

Staphylococcus aureus secretes a phosphatidylinositol (PI)-specific phospholipase C (PI-PLC) which is able to hydrolyze the membrane lipid PI and membrane protein anchors containing glycosyl-PI. The gene for PI-PLC (plc) was cloned from S. aureus into Escherichia coli. Oligonucleotide probes based on partial protein sequence and polyclonal antibodies raised against the purified protein were use...

A Staphylococcus aureus gene originally identified by signature-tagged mutagenesis as being required for virulence was cloned, sequenced and named svrA. Hydropathy profiles revealed that SvrA is likely to be membrane associated, having two regions with six membrane-spanning domains, the regions separated by an extended hydrophilic loop. When compared with the wild-type strain, an svrA mutant ex...

Staphylococcus aureus infections are becoming increasingly difficult to treat due to antibiotic resistance with the community-associated methicillin-resistant S. aureus (CA-MRSA) strains such as USA300 being of particular concern. The inhibition of bacterial virulence has been proposed as an alternative approach to treat multi-drug resistant pathogens. One interesting anti-virulence target is t...

BACKGROUND Dysfunction of agr, with reduced susceptibility or hetero-resistance to vancomycin, is thought to be associated with a worse outcome of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacteremia (MRSAB). However, the difference in agr dysfunction according to the SCCmec type in MRSA infection is undetermined. We compared the prevalence of agr dysfunction, reduced vancomycin suscep...

We have explored the synaptic and cellular mechanisms by which a single primary mechanosensory neuron, the anterior gastric receptor (AGR), reconfigures motor output of the gastric mill central pattern generator (CPG) in the stomatogastric nervous system (STNS) of the lobster Homarus gammarus. AGR is activated in vivo by contraction of the medial tooth protractor muscle gm1 and accesses the gas...

In the present study, we investigated the effects of Acori graminei rhizoma (AGR) on learning and memory for the Morris water maze task and on the central cholinergic system of the rats with excitotoxic medial septum (MS) lesion. On the water maze test, the rats were trained to find a platform that was in a fixed position during 6 days and then they received a 60 s probe trial in which the plat...

BACKGROUND Our aim was to estimate the prevalence of abnormal glucose regulation (AGR) (i.e. diabetes and pre-diabetes) and its associated factors among people aged 35-60 years so as to clarify the relevance of targeted screening in rural Africa. METHODS A population-based survey of 1,497 people (786 women and 711 men) aged 35-60 years was conducted in a predominantly rural Demographic Survei...

It is well known that the inverse function of y = x with the derivative y′ = 1 is x = y, the inverse function of y = c with the derivative y′ = 0 is nonexistent, and so on. Hence, on the assumption that the noninvertibility of the univariate increasing function y = f (x) with x > 0 is in direct proportion to the growth rate reflected by its derivative, the authors put forward a method of compar...