Originally named following its identification as a cause of soft rot in onions, Burkholderia cepacia has also been known as Pseudomonas multivorans and Pseudomonas kingae [1,2], and until most recently, as Pseudomonas cepacia [3]. A proposal for the transfer of 7 species of the genus Pseudomonas RNA Homology group II to a new genus Burkholderia with the type-species Burkholderia cepacia has bee...

Candida albicans is an opportunistic human pathogen, which colonizes at several anatomically distinct sites including skin, oral, gastrointestinal tract, and vagina. How harmless commensal C. albicans become a human pathogen when opportunity comes is not clear. This review will focus on the molecular dissection of virulence factors of C. albicans, including adhesion, proteinases secretion, hyph...

Despite the widespread use of antibiotics urinary tract infections (UTI) remain among the most common bacterial infections in the human population. About 5% of adult females are likely to have a UTI at any moment in time, while more than 50% of all women will experience a UTI at some stage in their lives [l]. Because individual women can alternate between symptomatic and asymptomatic episodes o...

In the past decade, community-associated (CA-) infections with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) have emerged throughout the world. Different CA-MRSA strains dominate in different geographical locations. Many CA-MRSA lineages contain genes coding for the Pantón-Valentine leukocidin. However, the role of this leukotoxin in CA-MRSA pathogenesis is still controversial. The genome ...

The most common Helicobacter pylori genotype among 37 U.S. children was cagA positive, vacA s1m1, and oipA "on" (n = 17, 45.9%), followed by cagA negative, vacA s2m2, and oipA "off" (n = 8, 21.6%), similar to the pattern in adults. cagA positivity was more common in blacks than in whites (i.e., 100% versus 56.5%, P = 0.032).