In recent years, the spread of drug-resistant strains of Streptococcus pneumoniae, as the most common causes of bacterial respiratory infections, threatens public health. Therefore, the use of new antimicrobial medicines to inhibit this pathogen is an urgent demand. In this research project, the inhibitory effects of thirty recently synthesized compounds including thiazole, thiazolidine, imidaz...

The efficacy of UV treatment to control bacterial adhesion onto hard surfaces was investigated in laboratory conditions. The major characteristics necessary for biofilm formation like extracellular polymeric substance (EPS) production, carbohydrate and protein concentration in EPS, and adhesion ability onto hard surface were studied using two bacterial strains isolated from marine biofilms. The...

background and objective : selenium is essential for biological systems at low concentrations and toxic at higher levels. heavy metals and metalloids such as selenium are major contaminants in 40% of hazardous waste sites. thus, bioremediation has been considered as an effective means of cleaning up of selenium-contaminated sites. materials and methods : in this study, 30 strains were isolated ...

background many efforts have been made by researchers to find new antibiotics which are clinically useful against bacteria and drug resistant microorganisms. objectives we aimed to evaluate the antimicrobial effects of hydroalcoholic extracts of leaves and seeds of the portulaca oleracea plant in traditional medicine of sistan region, southeast of iran. materials and methods in this cross-secti...

This work investigated the spatial profile and source analysis of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in soil that surrounds coal-fired power plants in Xuzhou, China. High-throughput sequencing was employed to investigate the composition and structure of soil bacterial communities. The total concentration of 15 PAHs in the surface soils ranged from 164.87 to 3494.81 μg/kg dry weight. The sp...

Sucrose is an important dietary factor in cariogenic biofilm formation and subsequent initiation of dental caries. This study investigated the functional relationships between sucrose concentration and Streptococcus mutans adherence and biofilm formation. Changes in morphological characteristics of the biofilms with increasing sucrose concentration were also evaluated. S. mutans biofilms were f...

The exposure to plant defense chemicals has negative effects on insect feeding activity and modifies insect gut microbial community composition. Dendroctonus valens is a very destructive forest pest in China, and harbors a large diversity and abundance of gut microorganisms. Host pine defensive chemicals can protect the pines from attack by the holobiont. In this study, boring length of D. vale...

Consumers increasingly use bottled water and home water treatment systems to avoid direct tap water. According to the International Bottled Water Association (IBWA), an industry trade group, 5 billion gallons of bottled water were consumed by North Americans in 2001. The principal aim of this study was to assess the microbial quality of in-house and imported bottled water for human consumption,...

INTRODUCTION HIV-1 is transmitted through semen from men to their sexual partners. Genital infections can increase HIV-1 RNA shedding in semen, but shedding also occurs in the absence of typical pathogens. We hypothesized that higher bacterial concentrations in semen would be associated with higher HIV-1 RNA levels. METHODS We analyzed semen samples from 42 HIV-1-seropositive Kenyan men using...