La vida y tu cuerpo jamás volverán a parecerte los mismos.Solo eres humano en un 10 %. Para cada una de las células que conforman tu cuerpo, existen otras nueve células impostoras. De modo que no eres un individuo, sino toda una colonia. Pero no nos alarmemos: estos microbios desempeñan un papel fundamental en la salud. Mantenernos sanos es imposible sin ellos.La biologa Alanna Collen se basa en las ultimas investigaciones para demostrar como nuestra colonia personal de microbios influye en nuestro peso, en nuestro sistema inmunologico, en nuestra salud mental e incluso en nuestra eleccion de pareja. Y nos brinda una gran noticia: los microorganismos son fundamentales para nuestra salud, porque a diferencia de las celulas humanas, si podemos cambiarlos a ellos para mejorar nuestra vida.Este libro fascinante nos convencera de que, para ser felices, es importante que cuidemos la relacion mas fundamental y duradera: la que mantendremos durante toda la vida con nuestra colonia personal de microbios.

El herpes zóster (HZ) es una enfermedad que acompaña desde antiguo a la humanidad, si bien es cierto que los clásicos no diferenciaban entre herpes zóster y otras enfermedades eruptivas de la piel en sus escritos. No fue hasta finales del s. XVIII cuando se establecio una forma de diferenciar el herpes zoster de la viruela, y a finales del siglo XIX se distinguio de la erisipela.El HZ esta causado por el virus herpes tipo 3 o virus varicela-zoster (VVZ), uno de los ocho virus conocidos de la familia Herpesviridae. Tiene distribucion mundial y la susceptibilidad es universal. El unico reservorio es el ser humano, y la transmision se produce de persona a persona por contacto directo a traves de la piel, por via respiratoria o por via conjuntiva.Se produce por la reactivacion endogena del VVZ. Es decir, para desarrollar un HZ, es preciso haber sufrido una primoinfeccion, generalmente en la infancia, que aparecera en forma de varicela (clinica o subclinica). Una vez superada la primoinfeccion, el VVZ queda acantonado en los ganglios sensitivos hasta su eventual reactivacion.

Uma linha do tempo da pandemia e uma análise clara dos mais importantes estudos científicos sobre o tema, com a verve e a inteligência de um de nossos mais inspirados biólogos. Para Fernando Reinach,

Carbapenem resistant Acinetobacter baumannii, especially the metallo beta lactamase (MBL) positive ones, are fast coming up the list of pathogens causing nosocomial infections. Thus it should be a present day concern of all tertiary care hospitalto detect the presence of MBL positive Acinetobacter baumannii.Aims: To determine the presence and extent of MBL positive Acinetobacter bauman-nii group.

Hypersensitivity to Anisakis species is a worldwide medical problem. The aim of this study was to detect the immunological response in experimental mice, through measurement of Immunoglobulin E (IgE) antibodies in their lympho-cytes by fow cytometry, following the ingestion of Anisakis crude antigen.

Aeromonas veronii biovar sobria is associated with various infections in humans. Isolation of Aeromonas sobria in patients with gastroenteritis is not unusual. We describe a case of Aeromonas veronii biovar sobria gastroenteritis in a young patient. This is the frst documented case reported from Pakistan.

Afatoxin exposure has been shown to cause cell-mediated immune suppression and enhance HIV viral replication. Such immune suppression from afa-toxin can impair resistance to both infectious diseases

Infections due to gram-negative bacilli are common in cancer pa-tients during aggressive therapy. The presented study determined the microbial spectrum and antimicrobial susceptibility of gram-negative bacteria isolated from various infection sites in hospitalized cancer patients in Egypt.

Natural food biopreservatives have alwayss remained the preference of health conscious consumers. This necessity has led to the studies exploring better alternatives which are more acceptable, economical and safer than chemical preservatives. Bacteriocins are one of such compounds produced by lactic acid bacteria which ofer a great potential to contribute in food, health and pharmaceutical industry. Present review focuses the complete biochemical, functional and molecular genetic characterization of bacteriocins produced by Pediococcus spp. A great deal of diverse heterologous expression systems have been exploited for cloning, expression and purifcation of pediocins at laboratory scale but data is lacking for industrial processes. Thus, there is an urgent need to design low cost, industrially viable and continuous system in order to exploit these natural bioactive compounds in food and pharmaceutical industry.

Cryptococcal meningitis has become the most common lethal opportunistic fungal infection in people with HIV and AIDS. Prompt treatment depends on awareness of the common symptoms. The purpose of this study was to identify factors associated with Cryptococcus meningitis in HIV infected patients in Kisumu District.

Managing bacteria and their bioflms in wounds is vital in achieving wound healing. Determination of antimicrobial and antibioflm activity of diferent remedies such as dexpanthenol and propolis- natural bee product- alone and/or in combination with topical antimicrobial agents on Pseudomonas and Staphylococcus wound infection was the aim of the this study.

Ascites can present a challenging diagnostic problem. Bacteria caus-ing spontaneous bacterial peritonitis (SBP) may difer in patients with and without underlying malignancies. To date, reports focusing on patients with malignancies and ascites are less. The aim of the present study was to determine the prevalence and causative agents of SBP in cancer and non cancer patients and the antibacte-rial susceptibilities of these microorganisms. Also, to identify diferences, if any, in polymorphonuclear (PMN) cell count, interleukin (IL)-6 concentration, and diferent biochemical diagnostic parameters, we analyzed for infected and non infected as-cites in both groups.

Owing to the inability of real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to distinguish between signals originating from viable cells and DNA released from dead cells, (i.e. it can detect dead cells) a risk exists that DNA from dead cells can result in false-positive PCR signals, so it is important to use a proper method for sterilization to maintain the accuracy of the quantitative real-time PCR assay.

Owing to the inability of real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to distinguish between signals originating from viable cells and DNA released from dead cells, (i.e. it can detect dead cells) a risk exists that DNA from dead cells can result in false-positive PCR signals, so it is important to use a proper method for sterilization to maintain the accuracy of the quantitative real-time PCR assay.

Diagnosis of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection routinely performed in the microbiology laboratories is based on the detection of serum antibodies against hepatitis C virus (anti-HCV) by two main methods: enzyme immunoassay (EIA) and chemiluminescence immunoassay (CIA). Diferent reactives built on these two methods were manufactured and are still in use for the diagnosis of HCV infections. The most common problem in the laboratory screening assay of anti-HCV is the false positivity of low titers. A confrmatory test is needed to discriminate the false positive results from the accurate ones. A lot of discussions focused on deciding a reliable, easy-to-use and cost-efective confrmative test method in order to check and confrm the results of anti-HCV reactives routinely used in the detection of serum anti-HCV level.

Pseudomonas aeruginosa infection is a serious problem in patients hospitalized with cancer, cystic fbrosis (CF) and in intensive care units (ICUs). Twitch-ing motility contributes to the virulence of P. aeruginosa and permits colonization and infection of the respiratory tract. Genetic relatedness and cross-infection by multidrug-resistant (MDR) P. aeruginosa could be identifed by the random ampli-fed polymorphic (RAPD) PCR genotypic identifcation system.

A 24-year-old man, injection drug user (IDU) and HIV-positive was admitted to the Infectious Department of Imam Khomeini Hospital in February 2010, with a history of two months of malaise, night sweating and weight loss. He complained of fever and chills. On examination, pale conjunctivae and a palpable spleen were the only remarkable clinical fndings. PPD skin test was not reactive and chest X-ray was also normal. Abdominal CT scan revealed multiple hypodense regions suggestive for splenic abscesses. Diagnostic laparatomy and splenectomy were performed. Defnite tuberculosis infection became evident after that Ziehl- Neelsen staining of the infammated tissue was performed and suspected acid-fast bacilli of Mycobacterium tuberculosis were detected under microscopy. Consecutively, the tuberculostatic treatment including isoniazid (300 mg daily), rifampicin (600 mgr daily), ethambutol (800 mgr daily) and pyrazinamide (1000 mgr daily) were initiated; He eventually began to improve and the fever resolved within 10 days.

Antimicrobial susceptibility testing was performed on a total of 253 [203 shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) and 50 non-STEC] Escherichia coli isolates from difer-ent raw meats, RTE meat foods, drinking water and human diarrhoeic samples in Pun-jab, India. Among the 20 antimicrobial agents tested, resistance was most frequent for penicillin (253/253, 100%) followed by linezolid (249/253, 98.4%), erythromycin (245/253, 96.8%), streptomycin (232/253, 91.7%), tetracycline (223/253, 88.1%), am-picillin 123/253,48.2%), cephotaxime (106/253,41.9%), trimethoprim (93/253, 36.8%)), co-trimoxazole (85/253, 33.6%), cefaclor (84/253, 33.2%), amoxycillin (79/253, 31.3%), ciprofoxacin (78/253, 30.8%), kanamycin (76/253, 30.0%), norfoxacin (62/253, 24.5%), ofoxacin (60/253, 23.7%), chloramphenicol (35/253, 13.8%), Polymyxin-B (27/253, 10.6%), colistin (25/253,9.9%), amikacin (22/253, 8.7%) and gentamycin (17/253, 6.7%). Out of 203 STEC isolates 73 (35.9%) showed resistance to more than 50% of the anti-biotics tested. Only one isolate from pork showed resistance to 90% of the antibiotics tested. Cluster analysis also revealed that human isolates were diferent from other E. coli isolated from meat and meat products sources. The distribution of resistance determinants for tetracycline and streptomycin was assessed by PCR in resistant iso-lates. The most common resistance determinants were tetA (60%) and tetB (27%). Forty seven per cent of the isolates contained both strA and strB genes, 33% and 10% isolates carried strA and strB genes, respectively and 10% of isolates did carry neither strA nor strB. Cloning and sequencing of tetA and tetB genes of O69 shiga toxin-pro-ducing E. coli isolate from bufalo meat showed 99-100% homology with published sequences of related isolates in GenBank. Antibiotic susceptibility studies revealed that meat, RTE meat products, drinking water and human diarrhoeic samples from Punjab, India contains multiple drug resistant strains of E. coli which may serve as a reservoir for antibiotic resistance genes in the food environment and may transmit to humans through food chain.

Nowadays, the diagnosis of echinococcus infection with multiple organs involvement is not frequent in clinical practice. We report the case of a 35- year-old woman admitted to the Imam Khomeini Hospital with simultaneous liver and lung cysts. In endemic areas, workup of echinococcal infection should be considered when a patient presents with cystic lesions of multiple organs.

Actinomyces hyovaginalis A11-2, a soil isolate obtained throughout a previous screening program able to transform vitamin D3 to its biologically active form, calcitriol (1α, 25-dihydroxy vitamin D3).