Bacillus thuringiensis has been extensively used for the biological control of insect pests. Nematicidal B. thuringiensis strains have also been identified; however, virulence factors of such strains are poorly investigated. Here, we describe virulence factors of the nematicidal B. thuringiensis 4A4 strain, using the model nematodes Pristionchus pacificus and Caenorhabditis elegans. We show tha...

OBJECTIVE To determine if clinically used botulinum exotoxin A (Botox) injections to the forehead and glabellar and crow's-feet regions result in modifications of eyebrow position. DESIGN Prospective study. SETTING Academic medical center in St Louis, Mo. SUBJECTS Twenty-nine adult patients treated with botulinum exotoxin A injections for rhytids. INTERVENTION The eyebrow position at 13...

Methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), particularly strains with type III staphylococcal cassette chromosome mec (SCCmec), represent a serious human pathogen in Tehran, Iran. The disease-causing capability depends on their ability to produce a wide variety of virulent factors. The prevalence of exotoxin genes and multiple-locus variable number of tandem repeats fingerprinting (MLVF...

Silkworms are invertebrate animals that are killed by bacteria pathogenic against humans, such as Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus pyogenes, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Vibrio cholerae. Injection into the hemolymph of antibiotics that are clinically used for human patients abolishes the killing effects. There are several advantages to using silkworms as an infection model, such as low cost,...

Toxic shock-like syndrome (TSLS) is characterized by hypotension or shock, fever, multiorgan system involvement, and a concurrent group A streptococcal infection. We analyzed 34 streptococcal strains isolated from patients with clinically well-documented TSLS for their pyrogenic toxin profiles and M-protein types. Although strains of nine different M types were represented in the sample, 74% of...

Mycoplasma neurolyticum was identified as the cause of "rolling disease" in mice by Sabin (1) and Findlay et al. (2) in 1938. These investigators encountered the agent in the course of intracerebral passages of mouse brain homogenates in mice. The neurological syndrome was bizarre and unique, characterized by the abrupt onset of continual rolling movements to one side or the other, persisting f...

The scFv antibody towards the Burkholderia pseudomallei exotoxin was previously constructed by phage display and exhibited good specificity towards the exotoxin. We report here the optimization of the scFv expression in an E. coli expression system. Four different E. coli strains (ER2537, TG1, HB2151, and XL1-Blue) were examined for optimal expression of the scFv protein. Two types of carbon so...

As beta-haemolytic streptococci can be cultured in people with and in those without a sore throat, a case-control study was set up in 43 family practices in The Netherlands. The association was tested between the number of colony counts, specific T/M types and exotoxin genes and an acute sore throat. Duplicate throat swabs were taken from 663 sore-throat patients, selected by clinical criteria,...

K1 is a monoclonal antibody that reacts with a cell surface antigen (CAK1) found in human mesothelia and nonmucinous ovarian tumors. In this article, the characteristics of the CAK1 antigen have been examined in detail. Using immunofluorescence microscopy, we have found that the CAK1 signal is removed from the cell surface by treatment with proteases or by phosphatidylinositol-phospholipase C, ...