Critical to the pathogenesis of intestinal amebiasis, Entamoeba histolytica (Eh) induces mucus hypersecretion and degrades the colonic mucus layer at the site of invasion. The parasite component(s) responsible for hypersecretion are poorly defined, as are regulators of mucin secretion within the host. In this study, we have identified the key virulence factor in live Eh that elicits the fast re...

BACKGROUND Obesity, metabolic syndrome (MetS), and diabetes are frequent in surgical populations and can enhance susceptibility to postoperative surgical site infections. Reduced neutrophil function has been linked with diabetes and risk of Staphylococcus aureus infection. Therefore, neutrophil function in diabetic and obese subjects (± MetS) was assessed in this prospective serological and cel...

BACKGROUND Clumping factor A (ClfA) is a Staphylococcus aureus cell wall-associated adhesin that mediates staphylococcal binding to fibrinogen and platelets. Our goals were to determine whether expression of capsular polysaccharide (CP) affected ClfA-mediated adherence of S. aureus and to assess whether the length of the ClfA repeat region influenced this interaction. METHODS ClfA constructs ...

atmospheric circulation patterns are responsible for drought and flood occurrences around the globe specifically in moderate mid latitude climates. while some circulation patterns are responsible for wet spells and floods as well, the drought events can be attributed to some other circulation patterns. therefore, identification and distinction of dry/wet producing patterns and the geographical ...

Introduction The physiopathology of patients with treatment-resistant obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) may differ from that treatment-responsive patients. Cognitive evoked potentials be one the ways to detect these differences. error-related negativity (ERN) is an electrophysiological correlate error detection during execution a motor task, which larger in OCD than typical people. According ...

Objective: Previous research with healthy subjects suggests that the lower alpha band re ̄ects attentional whereas the upper alpha band semantic processes. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether dyslexics show de®cits in attentional control and/or semantic encoding. Method: The EEG was recorded while subjects were reading numbers, words and pseudowords and analyzed in a lower an...

Humans are surrounded by sources of daily exposure to power-frequency (60 Hz in North America) magnetic fields (MFs). Such time-varying MFs induce electric fields and currents in living structures which possibly lead to biological effects. The present pilot study examined possible extremely low frequency (ELF) MF effects on human neuromotor control in general, and physiological postural tremor ...

A number of studies have shown that modulating cortical activity by means of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) affects performances of both healthy and brain-damaged subjects. In this study, we investigated the potential of tDCS to enhance associative verbal learning in 10 healthy individuals and to improve word retrieval deficits in three patients with stroke-induced aphasia. In h...

Selection pressures exerted on Staphylococcus aureus by host factors may lead to the emergence of mutants better adapted to the evolving conditions at the infection site. This study was aimed at identifying the changes that occur in S. aureus exposed to the host defense mechanisms during chronic osteomyelitis and evaluating whether these changes affect the virulence of the organism. Genome asse...