The antibacterial activity of the new penem compound HRE 664 was evaluated in 451 clinical isolates, including ampicillin-resistant members of the family Enterobacteriaceae, Acinetobacter spp., Haemophilus influenzae, Staphylococcus aureus, and beta-hemolytic streptococci, and compared with those of piperacillin, ceftazidime, ceftriaxone, aztreonam, imipenem, and the penem compound Sch 34343. T...

Heterocapsa circularisquama (Dinophyceae), a red tide dinoflagellate, is toxic to bivalve molluscs such as the pearl oyster (Pinctada fucata), but no harmful effects of this alga on fish have been observed so far. We found that 7 strains of H. circularisquama showed hemolytic activities toward rabbit erythrocytes in a cell-density dependent manner, but to quite different extents. The strains wh...

A 46-yr-old female with chronic pyelonephritis was found to lack complement (C) activity by the use of hemolytic screen assays in agarose gels. These assays also revealed a propensity of patient serum to form an activated complex of the fifth and sixth components of C, C56. Each of the C component hemolytic activities was present in normal or elevated amounts with the exception of C7, which was...

Paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria and atypical hemolytic uremic syndrome are diseases of excess activation of the alternative pathway of complement that are treated with eculizumab, a humanized monoclonal antibody against the terminal complement component C5. Eculizumab must be administered intravenously, and moreover some patients with paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria on eculizumab have s...

Lipopolysaccharide (LPS), shed by gram-negative bacteria during infection and antimicrobial therapy, may lead to lethal endotoxic shock syndrome. A rational design strategy based on the presumed mechanism of antibacterial effect was adopted to design cationic antimicrobial peptides capable of binding to LPS through tandemly repeated sequences of alternating cationic and nonpolar residues. The p...

In this study we demonstrated that a hemolytic strain of Listeria monocytogenes, but not a nonhemolytic mutant derived from it, translocated in substantial numbers to the mesenteric lymph nodes, spleen, and liver after intragastric inoculation of mice. Growth at 4 degrees C prior to inoculation did not increase the virulence of the nonhemolytic mutant. These results indicate that hemolytic acti...