The effect of two phenolic compounds vanillin (4-hydroxy-3-methoxybenzaldehyde) and lignin on the development of drug/antibiotic resistance in Salmonella typhimurium was studied. Using the modified Ames test we have shown that vanillin alone has negligible effect on spontaneous mutability to ciprofloxacin and gentamicin resistance. At the tested concentrations vanillin reduces the toxicity of 4...

Fungal pathogens are using several mechanisms to circumvent the inhibitory actions of antifungal drugs. The variety of these mechanisms was revealed in recent years by several laboratories with molecular approaches. Besides the identification of genes involved in antifungal drug resistance and the discovery of alternative pathways of resistance (i.e. biofilm formation), novel concepts in the un...

Received: Revised: Accepted: 2013–09–16 2013–10–24 2013–10–24 Emergence of antimicrobial drug resistance in bacteria is widely explored but still ill understood. Antibiotic resistance is a complex phenomenon due to multiple ways of its acquisition, mechanism of action and spread. Antibiotic resistance may be innate, present in microbes due to their inherent inbuilt metabolic and structural comp...

VEB-1 extended-spectrum beta-lactamase-producing Acinetobacter baumannii was responsible for an outbreak in hospitals in France. A national alert was triggered in September 2003 when 4 hospitals reported clusters of A. baumannii infection with similar susceptibility profiles. Case definitions and laboratory guidelines were disseminated, and prospective surveillance was implemented; strains were...

OBJECTIVES To evaluate routine use of antimicrobial drugs for treatment and prevention of cholera with special regards to the evolution of the antimicrobial drug resistance patterns of V. cholerae strains. DESIGN Retrospective population-based descriptive study. SUBJECTS Four thousand nine hundred and forty one notified cholera cases, their 15,381 patients' guards and their 159,263 househol...

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is one of the major pathogens causing hospital-acquired infections. It can easily develop antibiotic resistance through chromosomal mutations or by horizontal acquisition of resistant determinants. The increasing prevalence of multi-drug-resistant (MDR) or extensively-drug-resistant (XDR) P. aeruginosa isolates is associated with the dissemination of the so-called high-ri...

Phage-encoded virulence genes of group A streptococci were detected in 10 (55.6%) of 18 isolates of group C streptococci that had caused bovine mastitis. Bovine isolates carried other genetic determinants, such as composite transposon Tn1207.3/F10394.4 (100%) and antimicrobial drug resistance genes erm(B)/erm(A) (22.2%), linB (16.6%), and tet(M)/tet(O) (66.7%), located on mobile elements.

Background Multidrug resistance (MDR)-encoding plasmids are considered major molecular vehicles responsible for transmission of antibiotic resistance genes among bacteria of the same or different species. Delineating the complete sequences of such plasmids could provide valuable insight into the evolution and transmission mechanisms underlying bacterial antibiotic resistance development. Howeve...

Compensatory mutations, due to their ability to mask the deleterious effects of another mutation, are important for the adaptation and evolution of most organisms. Resistance to antibiotics, antivirals, antifungals, herbicides and insecticides is usually associated with a fitness cost. As a result of compensatory evolution, the initial fitness costs conferred by resistance mutations (or other d...

Peoples of the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions live in social and physical environments that differ substantially from those of their more southern-dwelling counterparts. The cold northern climate keeps people indoors, amplifying the effects of household crowding, smoking, and inadequate ventilation on person-to-person spread of infectious disease. The emergence of antimicrobial drug resistance a...