A Sustainable Future
To highlight the vital role microbiology plays in delivering on the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), we have created a collection of must-read research on three critical aspects of the SDGs: antimicrobial resistance, soil health, and the circular economy.
Collection Contents
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First outbreak of Haemophilus influenzae clone ST422 with low susceptibility to quinolones in paediatric patients in Japan
Introduction. Recently, a Haemophilus influenzae clone with low susceptibility to quinolones emerged in paediatric patients in Japan. Isolates of this clone survived for a long time when exposed to the therapeutic concentration of quinolones, despite being classified as ‘susceptible’ under the criteria of the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute. In the present study, we report the first outbreak of this clone in paediatric patients in 2018.
Aim. Our aim was to characterise the first outbreak of an H. influenzae clone with low susceptibility to quinolones.
Methodology. All H. influenzae isolates (n=62), collected at a Japanese teaching hospital in 2018, were characterized by both antimicrobial susceptibility tests and multilocus sequence typing. In addition, the similarity in genetic backgrounds was analysed by PFGE.
Results. Among all the isolates (n=62), quinolone low-susceptible isolates accounted for 19.4 % (n=12). Seven out of 12 isolates were identified as sequence type 422 (ST422) and showed more than 90 % similarity to each other by PFGE analysis. All ST422 isolates exhibited identical amino acid substitutions in both quinolone resistance-determining regions in GyrA and ParC. In addition, all these isolates were from paediatric patients who had been referred by different primary care clinics and had no relationship to each other.
Conclusion. In this study, we describe an outbreak of a quinolone low-susceptible ST422 clone in paediatric patients in Japan. Because ST422 isolates have already been reported in at least five other countries, it has the potential to spread worldwide.
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Fusion proteins towards fungi and bacteria in plant protection
More LessIn agriculture, although fungi are considered the foremost problem, infections by bacteria also cause significant economical losses. The presence of different diseases in crops often leads to a misuse of the proper therapeutic, or the combination of different diseases forces the use of more than one pesticide. This work concerns the development of a ‘super-Blad’: a chimeric protein consisting of Blad polypeptide, the active ingredient of a biological fungicide already on the market, and two selected peptides, SP10-5 and Sub5, proven to possess biological potential as antibacterial agents. The resulting chimeric protein obtained from the fusion of Blad with SP10-5 not only maintained strong antibacterial activity, especially against Xanthomonas spp. and Pseudomonas syringae, but was also able to retain the ability to inhibit the growth of both yeast and filamentous fungi. However, the antibacterial activity of Sub5 was considerably diminished when fused with Blad, which seems to indicate that not all fusion proteins behave equally. These newly designed drugs can be considered promising compounds for use in plant protection. A deeper and focused development of an appropriate formulation may result in a potent biopesticide that can replace, per se, two conventional chemistries with less impact on the environment.
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