Molecular typing and epidemiological investigation of clinical populations of Pseudomonas aeruginosa using an oligonucleotide-microarray.

BACKGROUND: Pseudomonas aeruginosa is an opportunistic pathogen which has the potential to become extremely harmful in the nosocomial environment, especially for cystic fibrosis (CF) patients, who are easily affected by chronic lung infections. For epidemiological purposes, discriminating P.aeruginosa isolates is a critical step, to define distribution of clones among hospital departments, to predict occurring microevolution events and to correlate clones to their source. A collection of 182 P. aeruginosa clinical strains isolated within Italian hospitals from patients with chronic infections, i.e. cystic fibrosis (CF) patients, and with acute infections were genotyped. Molecular typing was performed with the ArrayTube (AT) multimarker microarray (Alere Technologies GmbH, Jena, Germany), a cost-effective, time-saving and standardized method, which addresses genes from both the core and accessory P.aeruginosa genome. Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) and multilocus sequence typing (MLST) were employed as reference genotyping techniques to estimate the ArrayTube resolution power. RESULTS: 41 AT-genotypes were identified within our collection, among which 14 were novel and 27 had been previously described in publicly available AT-databases. Almost 30% of the genotypes belonged to a main cluster of clones. 4B9A, EC2A, 3C2A were mostly associated to CF-patients whereas F469, 2C1A, 6C22 to non CF. An investigation on co-infections events revealed that almost 40% of CF patients were colonized by more than one genotype, whereas less than 4% were observed in non CF patients. The presence of the exoU gene correlated with non-CF patients within the intensive care unit (ICU) whereas the pKLC102-like island appeared to be prevalent in the CF centre. The congruence between the ArrayTube typing and PFGE or MLST was 0.077 and 0.559 (Adjusted Rand coefficient), respectively.AT typing of this Italian collection could be easily integrated with the global P. aeruginosa AT-typed population, uncovering that most AT-genotypes identified (> 80%) belonged to two large clonal clusters, and included 12 among the most abundant clones of the global population. CONCLUSIONS: The ArrayTube (AT) multimarker array represented a robust and portable alternative to reference techniques for performing P. aeruginosa molecular typing, and allowed us to draw conclusions especially suitable for epidemiologists on an Italian clinical collection from chronic and acute infections.

[Risk factors and coronary heart disease prevention in selected Lódz population--Part I]. / Czynniki ryzyka a profilaktyka choroby niedokrwiennej serca w wybranej populacji mieszkanców Lodzi--czesc I.

UNLABELLED: Cardiovascular diseases are one the main causes of mortality all over world. Proper estimation and reduction of atherosclerosis risk factors are very important in both primary and secondary prevention of coronary heart disease (CHD). THE AIM: of our study was to estimate atherosclerosis risk factors profile in subjects, inhabitants of Lódz (Poland), with (group I) and without (group II) CHD. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Group I--196 patients (85 men and 111 women), aged 34-88 years (mean 63.3 +/- 10.1 years). Group II--170 subjects (87 men and 83 women), aged 24-82 years (mean 58.16 +/- 13.8 years) without CHD. RESULTS: Overweight or obesity was the most frequent CHD risk factor in the examined population (74.49% in group I). Other risk factor in this group were: increased total cholesterol level (65.08%), hypertension (51,53%), smoking (40.31%), diabetes (24.08%). In group II overweight or obesity was observed in 60% patients, smoking--48.82%, elevated total cholesterol level--43.53%, hypertension--40.24% and diabetes--16.98%. CONCLUSION: Our study have demonstrated that realisation of primary and secondary prevention principles in Lódz population is insufficient.

[Risk factors and coronary heart disease prevention in selected Lódz population--part II]. / Czynniki ryzyka a profilaktyka choroby niedokrwiennej serca w wybranej populacji mieszkanców Lodzi--czesc II.

THE AIM: Evaluation of the knowledge on CHD risk factors in selected Lódz population was made. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Realization of primary and secondary CHD prevention principles was assessed. RESULTS: Over 20% of patients with CHD and over 38% of subjects without CHD did not realize the prevention principles. Hypolipemic therapy was effective only in 44.21% of patients with CHD and 35.9% of subjects without CHD. Antihypertensive therapy was successful in about 55% of patients with CHD and 35% of subjects without CHD. CONCLUSION: The results of our study have shown low effectiveness of both CHD prevention principles realization and hipolipemic and antihypertensive therapy in selected Lódz population.