OBJECTIVES To examine the microflora of the upper small intestine in patients with seropositive rheumatoid arthritis (RA) using a combination of microbial cultivation and tests for microbial metabolic activity. METHODS Twenty five patients with seropositive RA, 12 achlorhydric control subjects, and 11 control subjects with normal gastric acid secretion were investigated. Disease activity was ...

Molecular tools based on rRNA (rrn) genes are valuable techniques for the study of microbial communities. However, the presence of operon copy number heterogeneity represents a source of systematic error in community analysis. To understand the types and magnitude of such bias, four commonly used rrn-based techniques were used to perform an in silico analysis of a hypothetical community compris...

MOTIVATION The most common approach to estimate microbial diversity is based on the analysis of DNA sequences of specific target genes including ribosomal genes. Commonly, the sequences are grouped into operational taxonomic units based on genetic distance (sequence similarity) instead of genetic change (patristic distance). This method may fail to adequately identify clusters of evolutionary r...

Objectives: This study aimed to assess clinical, microbial changes in IUD users and other contraceptive methods in referent to urban health centers in Hamadan city, Iran. Methods: Detailed history and gynecological examination were conducted on women (IUD users, n = 100) or other contraceptive methods (controls, n = 160) in the health centers. Results: Frequencies of the different vaginal patho...

Members of bacterial communities communicate and cooperate via diffusible chemical materials they emit into the environment, and at the same time, they also compete for nutrients and space. Agent-based models (ABMs) are useful tools for simulating the growth of communities containing multiple interacting microbial species. In this work we present numerical indices characterizing spatial distrib...

This work was designed to determine the effect of poultry droppings on diesel contaminated soil and evaluate its physiochemical properties. In this study, different ratios of diesel contaminated soil and poultry droppings have been used as raw materials. The mixture of diesel contaminated soil and poultry droppings were allowed to composting process for 40 days. The physicochemical parameters l...

Fecal sampling is widely utilized to define small intestinal tissue-level microbial communities in healthy and diseased newborns. However, this approach may lead to inaccurate assessments of disease or therapeutics in newborns because of the assumption that the taxa in the fecal microbiota are representative of the taxa present throughout the gastrointestinal tract. To assess the stratification...

Composting is a reliable technology for production of stabilized organic matter that is suitable for agriculture, but this process should be carefully monitored with appropriate indices. Quality of compost is important from maturity and stability viewpoint, but in most compost factories proper attention is not paid to it. This study was designed to evaluate the stability indices in municipal so...

Soil microorganisms have important influences on plant growth and health. In this study, four black pepper fields consecutively monocultured for 12, 18, 28 and 38 years were selected for investigating the effect of planting age on rhizosphere and non-rhizosphere soil microbial communities and soil physicochemical properties. The results revealed that the relative abundance of the dominant bacte...

Quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) software offers a rapid, cost effective means of prioritizing the mutagenic potential of chemicals. MDL QSAR models were developed using atom-type E-state indices and non-parametric discriminant analysis. Models were developed for Salmonella typhimurium gene mutation, combining results from strains TA97, TA98, TA100, TA1535, TA1536, TA1537, an...