Campylobacter jejuni was isolated from stool cultures from 14 (30%) of 46 patients with Guillain-Barré syndrome and from 6 (1.2%) of 503 healthy persons, and the difference was highly significant (p < 0.0001). In addition, serological evidence of recent C. jejuni infection was found in 5 of 29 patients with negative stool cultures. Therefore, 41% of patients were associated with C. jejuni infec...

Hamond C., Martins G., Loureiro A.P., Bremont S., Medeiros M.A., Bourhy P. & Lilenbaum W. 2015. First isolation and characterization of Leptospira interrogans serogroup Australis from swine in Brazil. Pesquisa Veterinária Brasileira 35(1):6-8. Laboratório de Bacteriologia Veterinária, Instituto Biomédico, Universidade Federal Fluminense, Rua Hernani de Melo 101, Niteroi, RJ 24210-030, Brazil. E...

The coronavirus heptide repeat (HR) region in the spike protein induces neutralizing antibodies that block the postfusion core formation and inhibit virus entry into target cells. The HR2 regions for coronaviruses of the same serogroup share high homology. We found that polyclonal antibodies derived from transmissible gastroenteritis coronavirus HR2 and upstream region were cross-reactive with ...

Studies of immunity to Pseudomonas aeruginosa have indicated that a variety of potential immunogens can elicit protection in animal models, utilizing both antibody- and cell-mediated immune effectors for protection. To attempt to optimize delivery of multiple protective antigens and elicit a broad range of immune effectors, we produced an aroA deletion mutant of the P. aeruginosa serogroup O2/O...

BACKGROUND In order to inform meningococcal disease prevention strategies, we analysed the epidemiology of invasive meningococcal disease (IMD) in the province of Quebec, Canada, 10 years before and 10 years after the introduction of serogroup C conjugate vaccination. METHODOLOGY IMD cases reported to the provincial notifiable disease registry in 1991-2011 and isolates submitted for laborator...

BACKGROUND Meningococcal disease is infrequently found in Taiwan, a country with 23 million people. Between 1996 and 2002, 17 to 81 clinical cases of the disease were reported annually. Reported cases dramatically increased in 2001-2002. Our record shows that only serogroup B and W135 meningococci have been isolated from patients with meningococcal disease until 2000. However, serogroup A, C an...

background and objectives: rapid clinical manifestation/progression of the meningococcal meningitis and lacunae in conventional bacteriological test often encourages indiscriminate use of antibiotics much before the etiology is established. this study was planned to evaluate ctra pcr for rapid molecular detection. in addition, multiplex pcr and sequencing was done for serogroup prediction to pr...

Techniques were developed for genetic characterization of Legionella pneumophila serogroup 1 by using restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis. Allozyme analysis provided an index of the discrimination achieved by restriction fragment length polymorphism. Isolates from human cases of legionellosis were examined by both methods, and their profiles were compared with reference strains of...

Counterimmunoelectrophoresis (CIE) was found to be a rapid, specific method for detecting circulating antibodies to Legionella pneumophila, using a simple ultrasonically disrupted antigen. The diagnostic specificity of the technique was 93% and the diagnostic sensitivity was 86.3%. Both IgM and IgG classes of antibody can be detected. There is some cross-reactivity between serogroup 1 and serog...

Monoclonal antibodies with two kinds of specificities, produced against Leptospira interrogans serovar pomona, were studied by agglutination and immunoblotting. Antibodies reacted either exclusively with serovar pomona or with all members of the Pomona serogroup, but none of the antibodies reacted with representative serovars of other serogroups. Both antibodies recognized epitopes on purified ...