Escherichia coli has been recognized worldwide as the most common causative agent for severe infections of the urinary tract. Colibactin is a genotoxin produced through a gene cluster called polyketide synthase (pks) island by members of Enterobacteriaceae. Limited information is available about the frequency of colibactin in E. coli isolates in Iraq. Hence, this study aimed to examine the frequency of some colibactin genes (CIbA and CIbQ) in clinical isolates of E. coli obtained from urinary tract infections (UTIs) in Iraq. Between October 2023 and January 2024, 120 urine samples were collected from females diagnosed with UTIs in Iraqi hospitals. 70 E. coli isolates were isolated after identification by biochemical methods and confirmed by molecular technique. In particular, the 16S rRNA gene was targeted using specific primers to confirm their identity. Conventional polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was employed to detect the CIbA and CIbQ genes and confirm the presence of colibactin. The findings of this study revealed a high prevalence of colibactin-producing isolates (40%, 28/70) compared to colibactin-non-producing isolates (60%, 42/70) with non-significant differences (p>0.05). In conclusion, the frequency of colibactin genes is high in E. coli strains isolated from UTIs in Iraq. The presence of pks-positive isolates at a high frequency is concerning, as it suggests the spread of a highly genotoxic strain in urinary tract infections in Iraq that could potentially lead to the development of urinary tract cancer diseases.
Contracaecum rudolphii Hartwich, 1964 is a nematode which causes major concerns to human and wildlife animal’s health. However, the population genetics of C. rudolphii has been poorly studied in Iraq. In order to gain a deeper understanding in the outline of the genetic diversity of the nematode C. rudolphii that were isolated from its host cormorant Phalacrocorax carbo (Linnaeus, 1758), in the middle areas of Iraq, twenty specimens of C. rudolphii adults were isolated from nine individuals of P. carbo. The first (ITS-1) internal transcribed spacers (ITS) of ribosomal DNA (rDNA) of C. rudolphii were amplified using conventional polymerase chain reaction (PCR); then, the amplicons were subjected to sequencing. Concatenation of ITS
... Show MoreContracaecum rudolphii Hartwich, 1964 is a nematode which causes major concerns to human and wildlife animal’s health. However, the population genetics of C. rudolphii has been poorly studied in Iraq. In order to gain a deeper understanding in the outline of the genetic diversity of the nematode C. rudolphii that were isolated from its host cormorant Phalacrocorax carbo (Linnaeus, 1758), in the middle areas of Iraq, twenty specimens of C. rudolphii adults were isolated from nine individuals of P. carbo. The first (ITS-1) internal transcribed spacers (ITS) of ribosomal DNA (rDNA) of C. rudolphii were amplified using conventional polymerase chain reaction (PCR); then, the amplicons were subjected to sequencing. Concatenation of ITS-1 (rD
... Show More-convex sets and -convex functions, which are considered as an important class of generalized convex sets and convex functions, have been introduced and studied by Youness [5] and other researchers. This class has recently extended, by Youness, to strongly -convex sets and strongly -convex functions. In these generalized classes, the definitions of the classical convex sets and convex functions are relaxed and introduced with respect to a mapping . In this paper, new properties of strongly -convex sets are presented. We define strongly -convex hull, strongly -convex cone, and strongly -convex cone hull and we proof some of their properties. Some examples to illustrate the aforementioned concepts and to cl
... Show MoreBackground and Aim: Canine parvovirus 2 (CPV-2) is a highly contagious virus that infects wild and domestic canines. Despite the use of a routine vaccination protocol, it is endemic in Iraq. The genetic drift of CPV-2 is a major issue worldwide because it abrogates virus control. In Iraq, there is a knowledge gap regarding the genetic sequences of asymptomatic and symptomatic CPV-2 cases. Therefore, this study aimed to perform a genetic analysis of viral capsid protein 1 (VP1) and viral capsid protein 2 (VP2), two major capsid-encoding genes, to demonstrate the possible role of certain mutations in triggering infection. Materials and Methods: Symptomatic and asymptomatic cases (n = 100/each) were tested by a polymerase chain reacti
... Show MoreThe problem of frequency estimation of a single sinusoid observed in colored noise is addressed. Our estimator is based on the operation of the sinusoidal digital phase-locked loop (SDPLL) which carries the frequency information in its phase error after the noisy sinusoid has been acquired by the SDPLL. We show by computer simulations that this frequency estimator beats the Cramer-Rao bound (CRB) on the frequency error variance for moderate and high SNRs when the colored noise has a general low-pass filtered (LPF) characteristic, thereby outperforming, in terms of frequency error variance, several existing techniques some of which are, in addition, computationally demanding. Moreover, the present approach generalizes on existing work tha
... Show More--The objective of the current research is to identify: 1) Preparing a scale level for e-learning applications, 2) What is the relationship between the applications of e-learning and the students of the Department of Chemistry at the Faculty of Education for Pure Sciences/ Ibn Al-Haytham – University of Baghdad. To achieve the research objectives, the researcher used the descriptive approach because of its suitability to the nature of the study objectives. The researcher built a scale for e-learning applications that consists of (40) items on the five-point Likrat scale (I agree, strongly agree, neutral, disagree, strongly disagree). He also adopted the scale of scientific values, and it consists of (40) items on a five-point scale as wel
... Show MoreThe environmental surfaces hygiene of college premises like classrooms play role in spreading different pathogenic bacteria, furthermore a Medical students are often potential vectors for resistant bacteria to their entourage. This study aimed to assess bacterial contamination and their susceptibility to various antimicrobial agents in the educational classroom of Al-Kindy College of medicine in two classrooms: one occupied by clinical visitor and non-clinical visitor students to evaluate and determine its health risk. In this cross-sectional study, different sites of the educational classroom of Al-Kindy College of medicine were studied. Ninety-sex Different swab samples were collected from 8 different sites of college across bot
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