A restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) assay was developed to identify and differentiate Old World, African-Eurasian orthopoxviruses (OPV): variola, vaccinia, cowpox, monkeypox, camelpox, ectromelia, and taterapox viruses. The test uses amplicons produced from virus genome DNA by PCR with a consensus primer pair designed from sequences determined for the cytokine response modifier B ...

Rabies and rabies-related virus strains were studied by using a panel of monoclonal antibodies directed against either nucleocapsid proteins or cell surface antigens of Mokola virus (Mok-3). Each strain was used in parallel to infect cultured cells and mice. Then, the patterns of reactivity of the different monoclonal antibodies were determined by the immunofluorescent-antibody staining procedu...

A series of experiments was carried out on various strains of streptococci in order to ascertain the changes which bacteriophage produces in the phenomena of agglutination of these organisms. The results can be placed in the following categories. 1. Loss of specific agglutinability was observed with partial and with what appeared as complete loss of specific agglutinin absorption and agglutinog...

Single s.c. injections of 500 ^g 7,12-dimethylbenz(a)anthracene in tricaprylin were given to 25 males and 25 females of 10 inbred strains of Syrian hamsters. In 9 strains, the average time of latency before palpable tu mors appeared was 13 to 16 weeks. In 1 strain, BIO 15.16, the average latency was 10 weeks. These differ ences are statistically significant. In this line, the first palpable tum...

PFGE has potential applications in the source tracking of fecal pollution in aquatic environments. We tried to distinguish the genotypes of Enterococcus faecium collected from fecal-contaminated water using PFGE. Well identified 115 strains of E. faecium were classified into 25 PFGE patterns, and characteristics distinctive to each genotype were recognized. Analysis of the characteristics of ge...

The major virulence factors of Clostridium difficile are toxins A and B. These toxins are encoded by tcdA and tcdB genes, which form a pathogenicity locus (PaLoc) together with three additional genes that have been implicated in regulation (tcdR and tcdC) and secretion (tcdE). To date, the PaLoc has always been found in the same location and is replaced in non-toxigenic strains by a highly cons...

Of 23 unique Escherichia coli strains from 10 men with febrile urinary tract infections (UTIs) and their female sex partners, 6 strains (all UTI causing) were shared between partners. Molecularly, the 6 shared strains appeared more virulent than the 17 nonshared strains, being associated with phylogenetic group B2, sequence types ST73 and ST127, and multiple specific virulence genes. This indic...

We determined the in vitro antibacterial activity of ciprofloxacin against Vibrio cholerae O139 recently isolated from cholera patients in India. Ciprofloxacin showed excellent antibacterial activity against the O139 strains, and ciprofloxacin-resistant O139 strains were not observed. The lack of incidence of ciprofloxacin resistance in O139 strains may be because O139 strains appeared comparat...

OBJECTIVE In order to avoid the misdiagnosis of thyroid diseases, we need to discuss the clinical features and diagnostic methods of cervical esophageal cancer and Zenker's diverticulum. METHODS The clinical and laboratory data of seven cases were reviewed retrospectively, and in all cases, esophageal-related diseases were misdiagnosed as thyroid diseases preoperatively. Among them, two cases...

SAR image acquired in the nighttime (10:30 PM local time) at the magnetic equatorial regions, i.e., Amazon, Africa, and the south East Asian areas, are often interfered by the streaks since the ALOS launch of the Jan. 24, 2006. These streaks appear both in amplitude image and phase of the SAR data, which contain the interferometric fringe and polarimetric phase. JAXA/EORC is conducting the quic...