background : due to the importance of the metal zinc as an essential biological element with known toxic properties, and considering the widespread secondary infections caused by pseudomonas aeruginosa strains with resistance to antibiotics and disinfectants, the present study aimed at exploring the antimicrobial properties of the metal zinc in both clinical and environmental multiple drug resi...

The objective of this study was to develop a bioremediation strategy for cadmium (Cd) and carbendazim co-contaminated soil using a hyperaccumulator plant (Sedum alfredii) combined with carbendazim-degrading bacterial strains (Bacillus subtilis, Paracoccus sp., Flavobacterium and Pseudomonas sp.). A pot experiment was conducted under greenhouse conditions for 180 days with S. alfredii and/or car...

Background: Bacteremia due to Enterococcus faecalis is usually caused by strains resistant to most antibiotics. Effective management of the disease is dependent on rapid detection and characterization of the bacteria, and determination its sensitivity pattern to antimicrobial drugs. The aim of this study was to investigate a more rapid and reliable assay for simultaneous diagnosis of enterococc...

Salmonella enterica serovar Pullorum is a fowl-adapted bacterial pathogen that causes dysentery (pullorum disease). Host adaptation and special pathogenesis make S. enterica serovar Pullorum an exceptionally good system for studies of bacterial evolution and speciation, especially regarding pathogen-host interactions and the acquisition of pathogenicity. We constructed a genome map of S. enteri...

The bacterial pathogen Neisseria meningitidis expresses two major outer-membrane porins. PorA expression is subject to phase-variation (high frequency, random, on-off switching), and both PorA and PorB are antigenically variable between strains. PorA expression is variable and not correlated with meningococcal colonisation or invasive disease, whereas all naturally-occurring strains express Por...

The aqueous extracts from medicinal plants commonly used by herbalists in Mbeere, and Embu districts of Eastern province, Kenya, were tested for their inhibitory activity against three selected strains of bacteria. All the selected plant extracts (infusions: 1.0 g sample in 100 ml water) investigated showed activity against Escherichia coli with inhibition zone diameters ranging from 5.8-18.0 m...

       Biosurfactants are surface-active compounds produced by microorganisms. In this study, we collected 60 inguinal area and ear canal samples from cows, sheep, and goats (each, 10 animals) and screened for biosurfactant-producing bacteria. We also determined the genera of culturing strains. Fifty six hemolytic bacterial strains (27, 22 and 7, from cows, sheep and goats, respectively) were i...

Escherichia coli is a diverse bacterial species that comprises commensal nonpathogenic strains such as E. coli K-12 and pathogenic strains that cause a variety of diseases in different host species. Avian pathogenic E. coli strain chi7122 (O78:K80:H9) was used in a chicken infection model to identify bacterial genes that are expressed in infected tissues. By using the cDNA selection method of s...

....................................................................................................................... 6 LIST OF ORIGINAL PUBLICATIONS ......................................................................... 8 ABBREVIATIONS ............................................................................................................ 9 INTRODUCTION ..................................

An alternative treatment for staphylococcal infections caused by antibiotic-resistance strains is to lyse staphylococci with peptidoglycan hydrolases, for example, a cysteine, histidine-dependent amidohydrolase/peptidase (CHAP). Here, CHAPs were analyzed in 12 Staphylococcus aureus genomes and 44 staphylococcal phage genomes. There are 234 putative CHAP-containing proteins and only 64 non-ident...