Zentralblatt fur Bakteriologie, Parasitenkunde, Infektionskrankheiten und Hygiene. Erste Abteilung Originale. Reihe A: Medizinische Mikrobiologie und Parasitologie最新文献

When normal rats were infected with Plasmodium berghei (Pb), both IgG and IgM immunofluorescent antibody titers were found to rise in the 1st week with increase of parasitaemia. After reinoculation of P. berghei into Pb-immune rats, IgG titer was further increased remarkably, although no parasitaemia was observed. No elevation of IgM titer was found. In rats infected with Toxoplasma gondii (Tg), IgG and IgM antibody activities were demonstrated in the 1st to the 3rd week postinfection but only IgG titer was maintained to the 16th week. The challenge with T. gondii to Tg-immune rats stimulated the further increase in IgG titer but not in IgM. When Tg-immune rats were infected with P. berghei, little or no parasitaemia appeared. In infection of P. berghei in Tg-immune rats which were treated with anti-rat thymocyte serum (ATS) beforehand, highly increased parasitaemia was usually found in the rats as compared with that in ATS non-treated rats. Pb-immune macrophages were more effective in phagocytosis of Pb-parasitized erythrocytes in vitro than normal or Tg-immune macrophages. When Pb-parasitized erythrocytes were preincubated with fresh Pb-immune serum, the phagocytosis rate of macrophages was clearly heightened. It was observed that the phagocytic activity of normal macrophages to Pb-parasitized erythrocytes was stimulated by addition of the supernatant (lymphokines) taken from the incubation of Tg-immune lymphocytes with Tg-antigen or Pb-antigen.

Three influenza A viruses possessing hemagglutinin-Hav7 and neuraminidase-N2 were isolated from 20 wild free-flying ducks in Hokkaido, Japan in autumn, 1977. The neuraminidase antigen of these viruses cross-reacted with the Asian influenza virus (H2 N2) but reacted scarcely with the Hong Kong strain (H3 N2Y in cross neuraminidase-inhibition tests.

Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia has been markedly increasing recently in Japan. Most cases are seen after receiving anti-cancer and immunosuppressive therapy against their underlying diseases. No cases have been found in undernourished or premature infants. The authors proposed a new method which can concentrate the cysts efficiently from the human and animal lungs, and express the density of infection quantitatively at the same time. This method will especially be valuable to demonstrate the organism in light infection such as latent infection, after treatment, and so on.

One hundred randomly collected Psuedomonas aeruginosa isolates were examined during a two months period of time in order to determine their origin in a hospital environment. Initially, neither the source of the isolates, nor the patients' names were known. The serogroups were determined with commercial antisera, and the pyocin patterns were established with the simplified method of mitomycin C induced pyocin production. The results were analysed in the chi2 test. A highly significant probability value (p less than 00004) was taken as evidence of the identity of the isolates, especially among strains originating from the neurosurgical, surgical and medical intensive care units investigated. The simplified method of the originally devised mitomycin C induced pyocin production with a selected number of 'indicator' strains in conjunction with the initial serogroup determination by the commercially available antisera, allowed a rapid tracing of all Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolates. This combined method is recommended as an easy and useful epidemiological tool for the study of Pseudomonas aeruginosa hospital acquired infections.

The BACTEC 225 automated radiometric blood culture system was compared with a conventional blood culture bottle method for its ability to improve the rapid laboratory diagnosis of bacteremia in cancer patients. The BACTEC 225, in combination with routine blind subcultures and smears of radiometrically negative culture vials, detected two thirds, of all positive cultures within 24 h and shortered the detection time generally by 24-48 h. With the recommended growth index setting of 30, radiometrically false-positive findings are rare and are usually due to leukocytosis resulting from infection or leukemia.

Isolating of F. tularensis from gamasid mites H. nidi parasitizing on the bank vole (Cl. glareolus) and L. hilaris on the common vole (M. arvalis) are reported. The epidemiological significance of this finding is discussed.

The serological specificity of leptospiral lipopolysaccharide (F4) antigen was examined by the technique of passive haemagglutination. F4 extracted from leptospiral serovars representative of several different serogroups showed wide cross reaction between serovars, including numerous one-way (non-reciprocal) reactions. The pattern of cross reaction was different to that of the standard leptospiral classification scheme.

Nicotin- and the so-called pyrazinamidase (in the following: "pyrazinamidase") have been found in strains of four mycobacteria species, M. fortuitum, M. gastri, M. bovis and M. microti. These findings are in contradiction to those summarized in Bergey's Manual of Determinative Bacteriology (1974). The reason for the discrepancies is that the original method (Bönicke, 1961) for amidase determination has not taken the following aspects into consideration: a) The inducibility of the nicotin- and "pyrazinamidase" (example: M. fortuitum); b) The temperature sensitivity of these enzymes (M. gastri); c) The light sensitivity of nicotinamidase (in photochromogenic M. gastri strains); d) The optimal substrate concentration which must be at least 4 mM instead of 0,8 mm. The following consequences can be drawn for the taxonomy and biochemistry of the tested organisms: e) The species status of M. gastri should be annuled. The main difference between M. gastri and M. kansasii consists only of the non-agglutinability of M. gastri by anti-M. kansasii serum. "Pyrazinamidase" and also nitrate reductase (Tarnok et al., in press) are positive in strains of both species; f) M. bovis possesses nicotin- and "pyrazinamidase" as M. tuberculosis too. Thus, these two species are more closely related than suggested earlier; g) Till now, no Mycobacterium has been found showing nicotinamidase without "pyrazinamidase" activity (or vice versa). It seems to be very probable that nicotinamidase, an enzyme of low substrate specificity, is able to hydrolyze several compounds with a nicotinamide-like structure such as pyrazinamide. Thus, we suggest the annulment of the term pyrazinamidase or the employment of quotation marks ("pyrazinamidase") to show the fictitious value of this designation.

The median level of haptoglobin types 2-2 and 2-1 was found to be proportional to the agglutination titer of T4 antigen-carrying streptococci (Fig. 1). This relationship need not exist in individual sera since, as seen from Table 1, high agglutination titers may be caused by sera with low levels of haptoglobin. Thus the agglutination reaction might depend not only on the quantity of haptoglobin but also on other factor(s) (at least in individual serum samples). - On the other hand, different agglutination titers did not correlate with the quantity of T4 antigen either. A strain of Strep. pyogenes, type 60, was agglutinated at high titers by sera with a high level of haptoglobin in spite of its low ability to absorb haptoglobin. This was in contrast to a strain of group G (20488) which had a high capacity both to become agglutinated and to absorb haptoglobin (Table 2). Absorption of haptoglobin by affinity chromatography decreased the agglutination titer for T4 streptococci. - The reaction between haptoglobin and T4-streptocci did not fix complement. No differences were found between sera of haptoglobin types 1-1, 2-1, and 2-2 with respect to the amount of C, C3, C4, and C3A, respectively (Tables 3-5).