1,720,962 research outputs found
ENHANCED BINDING OF MURINE MONOCLONAL-ANTIBODIES TO LIPOPOLYSACCHARIDE STRUCTURES OF ENTEROBACTERIACEAE AFTER TREATMENT WITH ANTIBIOTICS
No full textFour strains of E. coli, two encapsulated and two unencapsulated, were grown in the presence or absence of the β-lactam antibiotics aztreonam, ceftazidime and ceftriaxone, the fluoroquinolone ciprofloxacin, and the aminoglycoside netilmicin. Treatment of the unencapsulated strains with β-lactams and ciprofloxacin resulted in enhanced binding of murine Mabs (all:IgM) directed to rough lipopolysaccharide structures in ELISA. However, binding of these Mabs to antibiotic treated E. coli 07K1 (bearing a thin capsule) was only slightly increased, and was unchanged in E. coli 08K49 (surrounded by a thick capsule). Treatment of bacteria with netilmicin did not result in differences in binding of these monoclonal antibodies. These results show that the inner parts of the lipopolysaccharide become more accessible to antibodies when, especially unencapsulated, bacteria are grown in the presence of certain antibiotics
Effect of sub-minimal inhibitory concentrations of ciprofloxacin and fleroxacin on the bacterial capsular antigen and opsonophagocytosis by human polymorphonuclear leukocytes.
No full textWe have studied the effect of sub-minimal inhibitory concentrations (sub-MIC) of ciprofloxacin and fleroxacin on capsulated (K+) and non-capsulated (K-) Gram-negative bacilli (Escherichia coli O1:K1, O7:K1, O1:K-, O7:K-, and Klebsiella oxytoca) as well as on Staphylococcus aureus and we investigated the interaction of antibiotic pretreated bacteria with human serum and polymorphonuclear leukocytes (PMN). Following overnight growth in the presence of 1/2 MIC of the antibiotics, bacteria were opsonized in human serum and incubated with PMN. Opsonophagocytosis was quantified as the ratio of uptake by PMN of radioactively labeled bacteria. Ciprofloxacin and fleroxacin enhanced the phagocytosis rate of E. coli K+ strains (control 5-10%; 1/2 MIC of ciprofloxacin and fleroxacin 70-80%) of K. oxytoca (control O-2%; 1/2 MIC of ciprofloxacin and fleroxacin 35-40%) as well as of Staph. aureus (control 5-10%; 1/2 MIC of the antibiotics 35-40%). Opsonophagocytosis of K- strains was not altered. The enhancement of opsonophagocytosis was a complement dependent process. Exposure of capsulated E. coli to ciprofloxacin as well as to fleroxacin resulted in decreased amounts of the capsular antigen
Immunization of mice with antibiotic-treated Escherichia coli results in enhanced protection against challenge with homologous and heterologous bacteria.
No full textThe murine immune response to Escherichia coli exposed to subminimal inhibitory concentrations of four antibiotics was investigated. Groups of mice were injected for 8 weeks with formalin-killed bacteria and subsequently challenged with 10 x LD50 of viable E. coli. Mice receiving saline only (controls) died within 24 h. The mortality of mice immunized with ciprofloxacin-treated E. coli was significantly lower than that of mice immunized with E. coli untreated or treated with other antibiotics. Sera from mice immunized with ciprofloxacin-treated bacteria showed better bacteriostatic capacity and enhanced production of antibodies that bound to homologous and heterologous lipopolysaccharide isolated from several smooth and rough gram-negative strains. The better protection observed in mice immunized with ciprofloxacin-treated E. coli was probably due to an enhanced production of antibodies to epitopes on lipopolysaccharide that became better exposed and so more accessible after treatment with ciprofloxacin
Enhanced phagocytosis of encapsulated Escherichia coli strains after exposure to sub-MICs of antibiotics is correlated to changes of the bacterial cell surface.
No full textThe influence of five antibiotics (netilmicin, ceftriaxone, cefepime, fleroxacin, and ciprofloxacin) on capsular polysaccharide distribution and on opsonophagocytosis by human polymorphonuclear leukocytes of unencapsulated and encapsulated Escherichia coli strains was studied. Unencapsulated E. coli strains were readily opsonized in serum and easily ingested by polymorphonuclear leukocytes, and antibiotics did not further enhance the phagocytosis rates. In contrast, encapsulated bacteria were poorly opsonized in human serum, and phagocytosis was enhanced after overnight exposure to 0.5x the MICs of the antibiotics, with the exception of cefepime. Incubation of unencapsulated as well as encapsulated bacteria in complement-inactivated serum markedly reduced the bacterial uptake by polymorphonuclear leukocytes regardless of the presence of antibiotics. Slide agglutination assays, performed either with a monoclonal antibody for capsular polysaccharide or with an antiserum raised against the stable unencapsulated mutant E. coli O7:K-, showed reduction but not lack of the capsular polysaccharide of encapsulated E. coli O7:K1, and better exposure of subcapsular epitopes, after incubation with 0.5x the MICs of antibiotics. Flow cytometric analysis of encapsulated E. coli exposed to netilmicin, ciprofloxacin, and fleroxacin revealed that the reduction in capsular material was homogeneous among the bacterial population. Treatment with cefepime and ceftriaxone induced two populations of bacteria that differed in the amount of K antigen present. These results indicate that sub-MICs of netilmicin, ceftriaxone, fleroxacin, and ciprofloxacin influenced complement-mediated opsonization, probably due to changes in the capsular polysaccharide structure
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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