Velvet pads have been evaluated in an experimental, laboratory model, simulating intraoperative sampling of Staphylococcus epidermis, Escherichia coli and Bacteroides fragilis. After sampling, the pad was placed in a transport medium and kept in an anaerobic atmosphere, before being shaken and rinsed, followed by anaerobic and aerobic culture. This technique permitted quantitatively high recove...

Miniature inverted-repeat transposable elements (MITEs) are predicted to play important roles on genome evolution. We developed a BLASTN-based approach for de novo identification of MITEs and systematically analyzed MITEs in rice genome. The genome of rice cultivar Nipponbare (Oryza sativa ssp. japonica) harbors 178,533 MITE-related sequences classified into 338 families. Pairwise nucleotide di...

I. The discovery of MITEs in plant and animal genomes II. Organizing the diversity of MITEs III. The Tc1/mariner superfamily as a source of MITEs A. MITEs related to Tc1/mariner transposons in C. elegans B. MITEs related to Tc1/mariner transposons in humans C. MITEs related to Tc1/mariner transposons in insects D. MITEs related to Tc1/mariner transposons in plants IV. Tourist-like MITEs are rel...

BACKGROUND Studies in patients with allergic rhinitis living in the Free State have showed grass pollens to be the predominant allergens, with house-dust mite sensitisation being less prevalent than in the coastal areas and a low rate of sensitisation to the storage mite Lepidoglyphus destructor. No studies have been conducted on sensitisation to the other storage mites, spider mites or cockroa...

House dust mites produce potent allergens that exacerbate asthma in sensitized patients, whom are recommended to practice allergen avoidance within their home environment. We tested the effect of activated charcoal impregnated fibers on house dust mite survival. One hundred live adult house dust mites (Dermatophagoides pteronyssinus) were added to eight culture dishes preequilibrated at room te...

In this overview of investigations into mite allergy in Iceland and of the current understanding of the sources of exposure, 2 major categories of mite-induced allergies were encountered. The first was house dust mite allergy due to house dust mites from unknown sources, and the second was barn allergy caused by mites connected with the degradation of stored hay. Characteristics of these diseas...

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Non-diapausing spider mites (Tetranychus urticae) live on the undersurface of host leaves during summer, but diapausing mites overwinter in dark hibernacula. The light environments of these habitats differ: visible radiation (VIS) but not ultraviolet radiation (UV) reaches the undersurface of leaves, but neither enters dark hibernacula. Thus, mites of either seasonal form could locate their pre...

Cleaning symbioses represent classic models of mutualism, and some bee mites are thought to perform cleaning services for their hosts in exchange for suitable environments for reproduction and dispersal. These mutual benefits, however, have not been rigorously demonstrated. We tested the sanitary role of bee mites by correlating mite loads with fungal contamination in natural nests of Megalopta...