OBJECTIVES To characterise the pattern of colonisation and serotypes of Streptococcus pneumoniae among patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) who currently receive the 23-valent pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine (PPV-23) according to vaccination status, use of antibiotics and steroids. To investigate the prevalence of PPV-23 and 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PC...

BACKGROUND Exposure to non-pathogenic Streptococcus pneumoniae and vaccination are inversely associated with asthma. Studies in animal models demonstrate that airway administration of S. pneumoniae (live or killed), or its vaccines or components, suppresses the characteristic features of asthma in mouse models of allergic airway disease (AAD). These components could be developed into immunoregu...

conclusions tuberculosis was an important cause of cap in our region. hence, it should be considered in all patients admitted with a cap diagnosis. results among 120 patients with cap, the most common etiology was s. pneumoniae (24.4%), followed by mycobacterium tuberculosis (17.5%), s. aureus (6.7%), polymicrobial agents including anaerobes (4.2%), complicated hydatid cyst (2.5%), influenza a ...

Streptococcus (S.) pneumoniae strains vary considerably in their ability to cause invasive disease in humans, which is at least in part determined by the capsular serotype. Platelets have been implicated as sentinel cells in the circulation for host defence. One of their utensils for this function is the expression of Toll-like receptors (TLRs). We here aimed to investigate platelet response to...

It is difficult to separate Streptococcus pneumoniae from the genotypically similar species Streptococcus mitis and Streptococcus oralis, which are commensals of the human oral cavity. A novel nucleic acid amplification technique, loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP), which amplifies DNA under isothermal conditions (63 degrees C) with high specificity, efficiency, and rapidity, was exa...

Streptococcus pneumoniae is an important causative agent for bacteremia. Fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) is a helpful molecular technique for the rapid identification of S. pneumoniae in positive blood cultures. There are many reports concerning the application of an enzymatic treatment with lysozyme in the FISH procedure for partial cell wall digestion of S. pneumoniae. However, this ...

Plants used for traditional medicine contain a wide range of substances which can be used to treat various infectious diseases. Hence, antibacterial activities of ethanolic extracts of 19 plant species were studied against multi-drug resistant clinical isolates using agar well diffusion method. Extracts of Liquidambar orientalis, Vitis vinifera,?? ?????????????????????? ????????????????????,...

c ommunity-acquired pneumonia is a disease of varied etiologies. Each case varies with many causative agents implicated. This has been attributed to regional differences in the prevalence of microorganisms. Nevertheless there are several common etiologies leading to caP in community as well as hospital settings. 1 common causative agents of pneumonia in ambulatory patients are Streptococcus pne...

Two clinical isolates of viridans group streptococci (VS) with different degrees of susceptibility to optochin (OPT), i.e., fully OPT-susceptible (Opt(s)) VS strain 1162/99 (for which the MIC was equal to that for Streptococcus pneumoniae, 0.75 micro g/ml) and intermediate Opt(s) VS strain 1174/97 (MIC, 6 micro g/ml) were studied. Besides being OPT susceptible, they showed characteristics typic...

Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus pneumoniae, and Haemophilus influenzae are the common pathogens that colonize in the nasopharynx of children. Polymicrobial interactions are thought to play an important role in different sites throughout the human body. However, there are currently very few studies that investigate the interactions between S. aureus, S. pneumoniae, and H. influenzae in the ...