The antimicrobial mechanisms of rat polymorphonuclear leukocyte granule extract and isolated extract fractions against Acinetobacter calcoaceticus were examined. Crude granule extract and a fraction containing low-molecular-weight cationic peptides (peak D) reduced the viability of A. calcoaceticus and inhibited the uptake of radiolabeled macromolecule precursors by cells. The inhibitory activi...

War wound infection and osteomyelitis caused by multidrug-resistant (MDR) Acinetobacter species have been prevalent during the 2003-2005 military operations in Iraq. Twenty-three soldiers wounded in Iraq and subsequently admitted to our facility from March 2003 to May 2004 had wound cultures positive for Acinetobacter calcoaceticus-baumannii complex. Eighteen had osteomyelitis, 2 burn infection...

Acinetobacter johnsonii rarely causes human infections. While most A. johnsonii isolates are susceptible to virtually all antibiotics, strains harboring a variety of β-lactamases have recently been described. An A. johnsonii Aj2199 clinical strain recovered from a hospital in Buenos Aires produces PER-2 and OXA-58. We decided to delve into its genome by obtaining the whole genome sequence of th...

Acinetobacter baumannii is an emerging, nosocomial pathogen that is poorly characterized due to a paucity of genetic tools and methods. While whole genome sequence data from several epidemic and environmental strains have recently become available, the functional characterization of genes is significantly lagging. Efficient transformation is one of the first steps to develop molecular tools tha...

Acinetobacter baumannii is a Gram-negative opportunistic pathogen that is frequently associated with nosocomial infections. Bacteriophages infecting A. baumannii can be used as effective agents to control these infections. Here, we announce the complete genome sequence of the lytic bacteriophage LZ35 infecting A. baumannii isolates.

Pharmacodynamic profiling data of carbapenems for Acinetobacter spp. are sparse. This study aimed to determine the pharmacodynamic targets of carbapenems for Acinetobacter baumannii based on a range of percentages of the dosing interval in which free drug concentrations remained above the MIC (fT>MIC) in the neutropenic murine thigh infection model. fT>MIC values of 23.7%, 32.8%, and 47.5% resu...

Acinetobacter radioresistens strain SA188 is a plant endophytic bacterium, isolated from root nodules of the desert plants Indigofera spp., collected in Jizan, Saudi Arabia. Here, we report the 3.2-Mb draft genome sequence of strain SA188, highlighting characteristic pathways for plant growth-promoting activity and environmental adaptation.

The genus Acinetobacter consists of 31 validly published species ubiquitously distributed in nature and primarily associated with nosocomial infection. We report the 3.5 Mb draft genome of the Acinetobacter junii strain MTCC 11364. The genome has a G + C content of 38.0% and includes 3 rRNA genes (5S, 23S, 16S) and 64 aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase genes.

Kuga-Satake varieties are abelian varieties associated to certain weight two Hodge structures, for example the second cohomology group of a K3 surface. We start with an introduction to Hodge structures and we give a detailed account of the construction of Kuga-Satake varieties. The Hodge conjecture is discussed in section 2. An excellent survey of the Hodge conjecture for abelian varieties is [...

We read with great interest the recent publication of Tien and colleagues in which they describe the antimicrobial susceptibilities of a large number of Acinetobacter baumannii-Acinetobacter calcoaceticus strains isolated from a medical center in Taiwan (1). They suggested that antimicrobial susceptibility was negatively associated with virulent potential because more-susceptible strains were r...