Several molecular methods, such as Southern blotting hybridization, Multilocus Sequence Typing, and DNA microsatellite analysis, have been employed to genotype Candida albicans. The genotype analysis allows to group strains in clades, that is, a group composed of one ancestor and its descendants. These genotype studies demonstrate that clades distribution is influenced by geographic area as wel...

Staphylococcus aureus, a bacterium responsible for tremendous morbidity and mortality, exists as a harmless commensal in approximately 25% of humans. Identifying the molecular machinery activated upon infection is central to understanding staphylococcal pathogenesis. We describe the heme sensor system (HssRS) that responds to heme exposure and activates expression of the heme-regulated transpor...

In this study, 150 isolates of Uropathogenic Escherichia coli (UPEC) strains have been collected from different major hospitals in Kurdistan region and showed high resistant rates to most tested antibiotics accounting for 98%. There was no isolate that had demonstrated sensitive to all antibiotics, but they manifested with a wide range of resistance to most tested antibiotics ranging from resis...

We have shown previously (Lomniczi et al., J. Virol. 52:198-205, 1984) that the Bartha vaccine strain of pseudorabies virus has a deletion in the short unique (Us) region of its genome--a deletion that is related to the absence of virus virulence. This strain is, however, also defective in other genes involved in virulence. We show here that virulence can be restored by marker rescue of the Bar...

A key virulence strategy of bacterial pathogens is the delivery of multiple pathogen effector proteins into host cells during infection. The Hrp outer protein Q (HopQ1) effector from Pseudomonas syringae pv tomato (Pto) strain DC3000 is conserved across multiple bacterial plant pathogens. Here, we investigated the virulence function and host targets of HopQ1 in tomato (Solanum lycopersicum). Tr...

Virulent (plasmid-associated) strains of Yersinia enterocolitica grown on RPMI 1640 agar (RPMI-1640 medium [Flow Laboratories] with 40 mM HEPES and 1.5% [wt/vol] purified agar [Difco]) dissociated into small and large colonies. The autoagglutination test (a marker of virulence) is regularly positive with small colonies and negative with large colonies. Avirulent Y. enterocolitica strains gave o...

Two cases of meningitis caused by Streptococcus suis occurred in Madagascar, 1 in 2015 and 1 in 2016. We report the characterization of the novel sequence type, 834, which carried the mrp+/sly+/epf+ virulence marker and a mutation G→T at position 174, leading to a substitution mutS1 to mutS284.