The Gram-negative bacillus Serratia marcescens (S. marcescens) belongs to the Enterobacteriaceae family. S. marcescens was once thought to be a nonpathogenic saprophytic organism that appeared on decomposing organic matter, animals, plants, and foods, water, and soil. However, it has evolved into an opportunist pathogen that causes nosocomial infections, where it is linked to a variety of hospital-acquired infections, including conjunctivitis, septicemia, wound, and eye infections, pneumonia, meningitis, osteomyelitis, and endocarditis, in addition to respiratory tract and urinary tract infections (UTI). Chitinase, protease, nuclease, lipase, and hemolysin are among the products released by S. marcescens strains, and many of these compounds are probably virulence factors in human infections caused by this disease. Prodigiosin pigment is a natural red produced by S. marcescens which exhibits anticancer, and immunosuppressive properties furthermore to antimicrobial activities. This bacterium has been identified as an opportunistic pathogen that may harbor multidrug resistance mechanisms that complicate treatment, many S. marcescens strains are resistant to a wide range of antibiotics. There are two categories of S. marcescens strains: non-pigmented (white), and pigmented (red). Two stages are involved in the biosynthesis of prodigiosin. The bipyrrole moiety 4-methoxy-2,2-bipyrrole-5-carbaldehyde (MBC) and the monopyrrole moiety 2-methyl-3-n-amyl-pyrrole (MAP) are produced in the first step, which is also referred to as the cytoplasmic step. The condensation of the terminal products of the two parallel routes, MBC and MAP, to generate prodigiosin is the second step in the final biosynthetic process. The aim of this research is to study and know the use of prodigiosin in an applied and medical field and the method of extracting and purifying prodigiosin and the possibility of genetic manipulation of S. marcescens.
Retained soft tissue foreign bodies following injuries are frequently seen in the Emergency and Plastic Surgery practice. The patients with such presentations require a watchful and detailed clinical as- sessment to overcome the anticipant possibility of missing them. However, the diagnosis based on the clinical evaluation is usually challenging and needs to be supported by imaging modalities that are suboptimal and may fail in identifying some types of foreign bodies. Owing to that, serious complications such as chronic pain, infection, and delayed wound healing can be faced that necessitate a prompt intervention to halt those detrimental consequences. The classical method of removal is a surgical exploration which is not free of risks.
... Show MoreThe current study aims to identify the artistic expression as well as the aspects of artistic expression by the painting among the kindergarten children. In order to fulfill the research's goals, a sample of (400) children were chosen randomly from 19 public kindergartens of 6 directorates at Al-Rusafa and Al-Karkh in Baghdad city. The children were asked to draw a particular view. The researcher has adopted Al-Hamedawi scale (2009) consisted of (16) items, which was exposed to group of (25) experts in psychology, education, measurement and evaluation, artistic education by painting and plastics to show the items reliability. As the researcher applied T-test for 
... Show Moreبسبب محدودية الموارد الطبيعية، فأن سكان الخليج ومنذ القدم وجهوا جلّ نشاطاتهم توجهاً بحرياً: صيد الاسماك وصناعة اللؤلؤ العنصر الرئيس في حجم التشغيل، وتكوين الفائض الاقتصادي في المنطقة آنذاك.
لقد تزايدت أهمية هذا النشاط بخاصة بعد النصف الثاني من القرن التاسع عشر، لرواج تجارة اللؤلؤ عالمياً، وأنفتاح الخليج على الدول الاوروبية التي شهدت نهضة صناعية متسارعة، وحيث وصلت الخليج العديد من بضائع
... Show MoreCoffee is the most essential drink today, aside from water, the high consumption of coffee and the byproducts of its soluble industries such as spent coffee grounds can have a negative effect on the environment as a source of toxic organic compounds. Therefore, caffeine removal from the spent coffee ground can be applied as a method to limit the effect of its production on the environment. The aim of this study is to determine the kinetics and thermodynamics parameters and develop models for both processes based on the process parameters by using traditional solid-liquid extraction and Ultrasound-assisted extraction methods. The processes were performed at a temperature range of 25 to 55 °C for traditional and ultrasound baths, and
... Show MoreDespite the significant increase in women in academic medicine over the last 50 years, women are still under-represented in leadership positions in academia. However, there is a lack of data on the diversity of editorial boards in Middle Eastern medical journals. So, we aim to portray the diversity of editorial boards of Iraqi medical journals by conducting a cross-sectional analysis of the editorial boards’ members of all Iraqi medical journals. Gender, affiliation and specialty were extracted from the journals’ websites and/or from the professional profiles of the editorial board members. Twenty-five journals and 446 editorial board members were analysed. More than half of editorial board members specialized in basic scienc
... Show MoreThis study aimed to extraction of essential oil from peppermint leaves by using hydro distillation methods. In the peppermint oil extraction with hydro distillation method is studied the effect of the extraction temperature to the yield of peppermint oil. Besides it also studied the kinetics during the extraction process. Then, 2nd -order mechanism was adopted in the model of hydro distillation for estimation many parameters such as the initial extraction rate, capacity of extraction and the constant rat of extraction with various temperature. The same model was also used to estimate the activation energy. The results showed a spontaneous process, since the Gibbs free energy had a value negative sign.
Thiamine stimulates the production of a red pigment , which is chromatographically and spectrophotometrically identical to prodigiosin , by growing cultures of serratia marcescens mutant 9-3-3 . this mutant is blocked in the formation of 2- methyl -3- amyl pyrorol( MAP),the monopyrrole moiety of prodigiosin , but accumulates 4-methoxy-2, 2-bipyrrole -5- carboxaldehyde (MBC) and can couple this compound with( MAP) to form prodigiosin . Addition of thiamine caused production of( MAP) , and as little as 0.02 mg of thiamine / ml in peptone- glycerol medium stimulated production of measurable amounts of prodigiosin. Phosphate saltes and another type of peptone decreased the thiamine- induced formation of prodigiosin ,yeast extract and glyc
... Show MoreThis study has been carried out to evaluate the expression level of beta 2 microglobulin gene on patients infected by hepatitis C virus before and after treatment with interferon. The study included 117 hepatitis C patients comprising as 63 pre-treated patients, the range of age was between 20-65 year with a mean age of 48.12 ± 16.1 and 54 post-treated patients with age range was between 23-63 year with the mean of 46.1 ± 18.1. Also it was found that more than half of patients were located within third and fourth decade i.e. 30-49 year, with a percentage of 52.4% and 55.6 % for pre-treatment and post-treatment patients respectively. Moreover , regarding both groups, males are more than females with the ratio of ( 3.2:1) among p
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