Jacobson, Melissa

HLA‐DQ8 is associated with certain autoimmune diseases including celiac disease, juvenile diabetes mellitus, and rheumatoid arthritis. These diseases have significantly high morbidity and mortality rates and often require chronic, life‐long immunosuppressive therapy, especially in the case of rheumatoid arthritis. Recent studies have determined that commensal microorganisms from the gut flora can modulate the development of autoimmune diseases although the mechanism of action remains elusive. We examined the systemic immunological effects following oral exposure to live commensal bacteria within naive AEoDQ8 mice. Specifically, Prevotella species was isolated and cultured from the small intestine of celiac patients and administered by oral gavages every 48 hours for 2 weeks to AEo DQ8 mice. Significant decreases in serum IL‐17 expressed in pg/ml (2406 to 1662, □33%) and GM‐CSF (15.5 to 9.7, □40%) were detected in the sera of the group administered live bacteria as compared to the group administered sham gavages. The decrease in serum IL‐6, G‐CSF, MIP1a, and MIP1b levels did not reach statistical significance. Also, no difference in serum TGFbeta levels was observed between the two groups. However, FACS analysis revealed an increase in splenic CD4+CD25+FoxP3+ regulatory T‐cells in the group administered live bacteria as compared to the control group, 11.4% vs. 8.0%, respectively. These findings suggest that gram negative, commensal bacteria can suppress the expression of pro‐inflammatory IL‐17 at a systemic level.

ABSTRACT Planktonic and sessile susceptibilities to micafungin were determined for 30 clinical isolates of Candida albicans obtained from blood or other sterile sites. Planktonic and sessile MIC 90 s for micafungin were 0.125 and 1.0 μg/ml, respectively.

ABSTRACT We recently described a sonication technique for the diagnosis of prosthetic knee and hip infections. We compared periprosthetic tissue culture to implant sonication followed by sonicate fluid culture for the diagnosis of prosthetic shoulder infection. One hundred thirty-six patients undergoing arthroplasty revision or resection were studied; 33 had definite prosthetic shoulder infections and 2 had probable prosthetic shoulder infections. Sonicate fluid culture was more sensitive than periprosthetic tissue culture for the detection of definite prosthetic shoulder infection (66.7 and 54.5%, respectively; P = 0.046). The specificities were similar (98.0% and 95.1%, respectively; P = 0.26). Propionibacterium acnes was the commonest species detected among culture-positive definite prosthetic shoulder infection cases by periprosthetic tissue culture (38.9%) and sonicate fluid culture (40.9%). All subjects from whom P. acnes was isolated from sonicate fluid were male. We conclude that sonicate fluid culture is useful for the diagnosis of prosthetic shoulder infection.

ABSTRACT We tested the activity of anidulafungin against 30 Candida albicans isolates. The planktonic MICs for 50 and 90% of the isolates tested (MIC 50 and MIC 90 ) were ≤0.03 and 0.125 μg/ml, respectively (MIC range, ≤0.03 to 2 μg/ml). The sessile MIC 50 and MIC 90 were ≤0.03 and ≤0.03 μg/ml, respectively (MIC range, ≤0.03 to >16 μg/ml).