[Sensitivity of corynebacterium diphtheriae strains to antibacterial preparations].

AIM: Study the prevalence and mechanisms of resistance in circulating C. diphtheriae strains. MATERIALS AND METHODS: 664 C. diphtheriae strains isolated in 1987 - 2013 in various regions of Russia and sent to the reference center of Gabrichevsky Moscow Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology were the object of the study. Antibiotic sensitivity of the strains was studied by disk-diffusion and E-test methods using 10 antimicrobial preparations. Nucleotide sequence analysis was carried out by using BLAST program and EMBL/GenBank database. RESULTS: Most of the studied strains turned out to be sensitive to all the antibacterial preparations used. 1.2% of C. diphtheriae strains turned out to be resistant to penicillin and 6.0% had intermediate level of resistance. 0.4 - 0.6% of the strains had intermediate level of resistance to macrolides, and 4.0 - 4.4% were resistant. 2.0% of the strains had multiple resistance. Erm(X)-specific PCR carried out in this study showed that all the C. diphtheriae strains resistant to macrolide antibiotics carry erm(X) gene. CONCLUSION: The results of the study indicate a fairly high level of prevalence for C. diphtheriae strains resistant to antibiotics.

[Multilocus sequencing of Corynebacterium diphtheriae strains isolated in Russia in 2002 - 2012].

AIM: Characterization of contemporary C. diphtheriae strains isolated in Russia by using multilocus DNA sequencing (MLST). MATERIALS AND METHODS: 28 toxigenic C. diphtheriae strains isolated in Russia in 2002-2012 and sent to diphtheria and pertussis reference center of Gabrichevsky Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology were studied. C. diphtheriae strain genotyping was performed by using MLST based on atpA, dnaE, dnaK, fusA, leuA, odhA and rpoB gene fragments. Identification of alleles and ST was carried out according to EMBL/GenBank and PubMLST, eBurst approach was used for cluster analysis. RESULTS: By using MLST contemporary toxigenic C. diphtheriae strains isolated in Russia in 2002 - 2012 were characterized. 8 genotypes (ST41, ST5, ST8, ST28, ST25, ST44, ST-new1 and ST-new2) were identified, 3 among them were dominating--ST8, ST28 and ST-new1. Most of the toxigenic strains belong to biovar gravis and ST8. Among biovar mitis strains a higher heterogeneity by ST membership was noted, but with prevalence of ST28 strains. CONCLUSION: Use of MLST allowed to characterize contemporary circulating population of toxigenic C. diphtheriae strains isolated in Russia and showed perspective of application of this method for characterization of diphtheria causative agent population and detection of epidemically significant strains, as well as juxtaposing of them with genetic structure of foreign strains.

Molecular genetic study of species and strain variability in bifidobacteria population in intestinal microflora of breast-fed infants and their mothers.

Qualitative and quantitative composition of enteric bifidoflora was studied in a group of 13 mother-infant pairs. Pure cultures of Bifidobacterium strains were isolated from feces and their species were identified by PCR with species-specific primers or by partial sequencing of 16S rDNA. The strains were compared by REP-PCR. The most incident Bifidobacterium species in mothers were B. longum and B. adolescentis. The infants were mainly colonized by B. bifidum and B. longum. The mother and her baby were colonized by the same Bifidobacterium species in 9 of 13 cases. In 5 (38.5%) of these cases, these pairs of strains were identical by their REP-PCR profiles. These strains belonged to B. longum in one case, B. bifidum in 3 cases, and B. adolescentis in 1 case. Our results support the hypothesis on early colonization of infants with maternal bifidobacterium strains.

[Microbial colonization and succession in the large intestine of newborn infants during their stay with mothers at the maternity hospital]. / Mikrobnaia kolonizatsiia i suktsessiia v tolstoi kishke u novorozhdennykh detei pri sovmestnom s mater'iu prebyvanii v rodil'nom dome.

Formation of microflora in the large intestine of 5-day old infants was studied in one of the Moscow maternity homes. The up-to-date procedures for isolation and identification of aerobic and anaerobic organisms were used in the study and the findings were processed on a computer. In the newborns of the maternity home of the "mother-infant" type there was observed colonization of the large intestine with aerobic and anaerobic organisms. A wave-like dynamics in the formation of the symbiotic microflora was revealed. It reflected the phenomenon of the microbial succession in the infants. The attempts to detect microbial interference between the species colonizing the large intestine showed that it was extremely rare in the 5-day old infants. This was likely the reason of the low intestine resistance to the colonization in the newborns which in its turn defined the frequent colonization of the intestine mucosa with S. aureus and the organisms of the Klebsiella, Enterobacter and Citrobacter group.

[Isolation of plasmid DNA from Bifidobacterium]. / Vydelenie plazmidnoi DNK iz bifidobakterii.

Conditions for accumulation of the biomass and a procedure for isolation of plasmid DNA from bifidobacteria in microquantities were developed. It was shown that all the strains tested had 1 to 3 plasmids of different molecular weights electrophoretically detected. Relation between the detected plasmid DNA and bifidobacteria resistance to tetracycline and fusidin as well as utilization of some carbohydrates is discussed.

[Qualitative and quantitative composition of acids formed by bifidobacteria]. / Kachestvennyi i kolichestvennyi sostav kislot, obrazuemykh bifidobakteriiami.

The dynamics of acid production in 18 strains of bifidobacteria, belonging to 5 different species, has been studied Bifidobacteria have been found to produce 3 acids, lactic, acetic and formic, in the process of their metabolism. The lactic acid/acetic acid quantitative ratio varies, depending on the culture medium on the average, 1:2 in Blaurock medium, 1:5 in milk hydrolysate medium. Various strains have also been found to differ in the dynamics of acid production with respect to the amounts of lactic and acetic acids. The study has shown that, despite the active production of acids for a period of up to 72 hours, a decrease in the pH of the medium is observed for not more than 48 hours. The existence of a specific mechanism permitting bifidobacteria to regulate the acidity of their environment is supposed.

[Human Bifidobacterium flora, its normalizing and protective functions]. / Bifidoflora cheloveka, ee normalizuiushchie i zashchitnye funktsii.

The paper is concerned with investigation of the normalizing and protective role of the Bifidobacterium flora in humans and its quantitative predomination in intestinal microbiocenosis of children and adults. The data on antagonistic properties of bifidobacteria with respect to pathogenic and facultative pathogenic bacteria, the Bifidobacterium flora influence on the host metabolism and efficiency of bifidobacterin in recovery of the Bifidobacterium flora optimal level are presented.