The distribution of subclasses mefA and mefE of the mefA gene among 116 M-phenotype streptococci was as follows: pneumococci (38 strains had mefE and 4 mefA), viridans streptococci (49 mefE and 1 mefA), and Streptococcus pyogenes (24 mefA). Spain(9V)-3-14 and England(14)-9 clones of serotype 14 were dominant among pneumococci.

Vaccine development often encounters the challenge of virulence heterogeneity. Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) bacteria producing immunologically heterogeneous virulence factors are a leading cause of children's diarrhea and travelers' diarrhea. Currently, we do not have licensed vaccines against ETEC bacteria. While conventional methods continue to make progress but encounter challenge...

mefa is an R package for multivariate data handling in ecology and biogeography. It provides object classes to represent the data coded by samples, taxa and segments (i.e., subpopulations, repeated measures). It supports easy processing of the data along with relational data tables for samples and taxa. An object of class ‘mefa’ is a project specific compendium of the dataset and can be easily ...

The resistance of group A Streptococcus (GAS) to macrolide antibiotics is now a worldwide problem. Preliminary sequencing of the genome of an erythromycin-resistant serotype M6 clone that was responsible for a pharyngitis outbreak in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was conducted to determine the structure of the genetic element containing the mefA gene, which encodes a macrolide efflux protein. The m...

Immunological heterogeneity has long been the major challenge in developing broadly effective vaccines to protect humans and animals against bacterial and viral infections. Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) strains, the leading bacterial cause of diarrhea in humans, express at least 23 immunologically different colonization factor antigens (CFAs) and two distinct enterotoxins [heat-labile...

The presence of erythromycin-resistant (ErR) commensal streptococci in the throat of 110 healthy subjects and 87 patients with pharyngitis was investigated. The resistance determinants were studied by PCR using the primers for mef and erm genes, followed by hybridization and sequencing analysis. Overall, 94.4% of the subjects carried one or more ErR strains in their pharynx. A total of 253 ErR ...

During the period 1993-2001, a total of 1,499 pneumococci isolates were recovered through the Argentinean surveillance of Streptococcus pneumoniae causing invasive disease in children under 6 years of age, 3.5% of which were erythromycin resistant. Among the 50 erythromycin-resistant strains available, 58% (n=29) harbored mefA/E genes (15 mefA, 30%; and 14 mefE, 28%), 34% (n=17) ermB, and 6% (n...

Macrolide-resistant Streptococcus pneumoniae emerged in Argentina in 1995, representing 26% of invasive infection isolates in children under 5 years old. The objectives of this study were to describe the prevalence of ermB and mefA genes in macrolide-resistant S. pneumoniae isolates from acute otitis media (AOM) and to determine their genetic relatedness. Between May 2009 and August 2010, 126 S...

The genome of hepatitis C virus (HCV) consists of seven functional regions: the core, E1, E2/NS1, NS2, NS3, NS4, and NS5 regions. The U. S. Food and Drug Administration-licensed 2.0G immunoassay for the detection of anti-HCV uses proteins from the core, NS3, and NS4 regions (McHutchinson et al., Hepatology 15:19-25, 1992). The 3.0G enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay includes the protein from the...

The purpose of our study was to determine the prevalence of macrolide resistance in 3,188 pharyngeal Streptococcus pyogenes isolates collected at the Institute of Public Health of Serbia during the period 2006-2008. The disk diffusion tests were used to determine the susceptibility of the isolates. Two hundred and sixteen S. pyogenes isolates (6.8%) were resistant to erythromycin, with 9 isolat...