Objective To produce two supplemented agar types in order to store pneumococci for several months at room temperature. Methods Todd-Hewitt/Hemoglobin/Yeast/Charcoal/Agar (TH-HYC) and Todd-Hewitt/Skim-Milk/Yeast/Charcoal/Agar (TH-SYC) were used to prepare two supplemented agar types. Nineteen pneumococci isolated from patients or asymptomatic carriers displaying diverse serotypes and multilocu...

The role of alveolar macrophages (AM) in host defense against pulmonary infection has been difficult to establish using in vivo models. This may reflect a reliance on models of fulminant infection. To establish a unique model of resolving infection, with which to address the function of AM, C57BL/6 mice received low-dose intratracheal administration of pneumococci. Administration of low doses o...

Streptococcus pneumoniae is an important cause of upper and lower respiratory tract infections, meningitis, peritonitis, bacterial arthritis, and sepsis. Here we have studied a novel immune evasion mechanism of serotype 3 pneumococci, which are particularly resistant to phagocytosis. On their surfaces the bacteria express the factor H-binding inhibitor of complement (Hic), a protein of the pneu...

The pneumococcus has been assumed to be one of the causative agents in common colds because of its known pathogenic character and because of its predominance i n the mucous discharge in some cases. As far as we know, determination of the types of pneumococcus encountered in these conditions has not been made except in as far as the Pneumococcus mucosus type was identified on cultural grounds. F...

Quinolones are widely used in the treatment of respiratory infections, in large part because of their activity against Streptococcus pneumoniae and other commonly encountered respiratory tract pathogens. Pneumococcal isolates that are resistant to these "respiratory quinolones" have now begun to emerge. Resistance is attributable to mutations affecting the intracellular targets of these drugs, ...

The success of Cole 1 and his associates 2 in establishing four groups among the pneumococci affords a new basis for the study of the transmissibility and pathology of acute lobar pneumonia. The most important result of this work is, perhaps, its bearing on the epidemiology of the disease. It has been generally accepted that the pneumococci of the normal mouth may, under favorable conditions, b...

OBJECTIVE To determine the etiologic profile and analyze some epidemiological aspects of children with bacterial meningitis admitted to a public teaching hospital. METHODS A prospective study was conducted on children with clinical and laboratory diagnosis of bacterial meningitis, admitted to Hospital das Clínicas da Universidade Federal de Uberlândia, from January 1987 to January 2001. Patie...

Previous studies have shown that Streptococcus pneumoniae exists in both middle ear effusions and the upper respiratory region from children with otitis media with effusion (OME), but it remains unclear whether these strains represent genetically identical clones. Therefore, it cannot be determined whether these bacteria originate from a common source. To determine the presence of pneumococci a...

Three PCR techniques (amplification of the psaA, ply, and lytA genes) and a commercial kit (AccuProbe [GenProbe, San Diego, Calif.], based on hybridization with the 16S rRNA gene), all four of which claimed to be specific for Streptococcus pneumoniae, were used to identify 49 alpha-hemolytic streptococcal isolates suspected of being pneumococci. The definite phenotypic identification of these o...

1. Autolysis of Pneumococcus is accompanied by proteolysis, which results in an increase in amino and non-coagulable nitrogen. 2. Autolysis of Pneumococcus is accompanied by lipolysis during which there is a liberation of ether-soluble fatty acids. 3. When extracts containing the active intracellular enzymes are added to heat-killed pneumococci, lysis of the cells occurs and there is an increas...