Prodigiosins, a family of natural red pigments characterized by a common pyrrolylpyrromethane skeleton, are produced by various bacteria that first characterized from Serratia marcescens. This pigment is a promising drug owing to its reported characteristics of having antifungal, immunosuppressive and anti-proliferative activity. From an industrial point of view to obtain optimal conditions to ...

application of atoxigenic strains of aspergillus flavus to reduce aflatoxin levels is the most successful strategy applied in some agricultural crops. the role of ammonium hydroxide for preliminary screening of the competitiveness of atoxigenic a. flavus isolates to interfere with aflatoxin production by highly toxigenic isolates were evaluated. out of 270 a. flavus isolates, 17 were detected a...

Iota toxin is produced by Clostridium perfringens type E. This toxin causes antibiotic-associated enterotoxemia in lambs and calves. Iota toxin is a binary toxin that has two components including Ia (the enzyme component) and Ib (the binding component). Ib binds to the surface receptor of target cells and translocate Ia into the cytosol of cells. The aim of this study was to clone toxigenic epi...

Twelve yeast strains isolated from the surface of Italian typical dry-cured hams, belonging to D. hansenii, D. maramus, C. famata, C. zeylanoides and H. burtonii species, and previously selected for their ability to grow in dry-cured ham-like substrates, were screened for antagonistic activity against a toxigenic strain of P. nordicum and inhibition of ochratoxin A (OTA) biosynthesis. On averag...

A method for detecting toxin production in Corynebacterium diphtheriae cultures by counterimmunoelectrophoresis is described. Precipitin lines were observed in toxigenic strains in 30 min.

Fungi belonging to Fusarium genus can infect crops in the field and cause subsequent mycotoxin contamination, which leads to yield and quality losses of agricultural commodities. The mycotoxin zearalenone (ZEN) produced by several Fusarium species (such as F. graminearum and F. culmorum) is a commonly-detected contaminant in foodstuffs, posing a tremendous risk to food safety. Thus, different s...

introduction: clostridium difficile is the etiologic agent of several infections such as pseudomembranous colitis in human. these diseases are frequently associated with antibiotic useage but many infections with this organisms are seen without antibiotic administration. in addition it is believed that clostridium difficile is one of the most important bacteria involved in acquired hospital inf...

The Elek culture plate precipitin test is routinely used for the detection of exotoxin from toxigenic strains of Corynebacterium diphtheriae. Recently, the World Health Organization standardized this test to ensure accuracy, reliability, and reproducibility. In this study, we further modified the standard Elek test by using the antitoxin-in-membrane (AIM) and antitoxin-in-well (AIW) approaches....

A survey was made to determine the distribution of the enzyme neuraminidase among 76 strains of Clostridium perfringens. Representative strains from each toxigenic type (A to F) and atypical C. perfringens type A food-poisoning strains of both American and English (Hobbs types) origin were tested. Both the American food-poisoning and nonfood-poisoning associated cultures consisted of both neura...

Non-toxigenic clostridia, Clostridium butyricum but occasionally C. paraputrificum, were isolated from mainly extra-alimentary sites of 28 babies in maternity hospital over a period of 40 weeks. During that time, C. butyricum was isolated from the blood of two babies who died of necrotising enterocolitis and of two babies without referable symptoms. Otherwise these organisms appeared to be of n...