Objective: The present work was undertaken to investigate the impact of sub inhibitory concentration of gentamicin on hla gene expression in methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus isolates. Methods: The bacterial isolates used in this study represent 33 MRSA strains, previously isolated form patients visiting several hospitals in Baghdad. Gentamicin, vancomycin, and oxacillin MIC were determined using broth dilution method. Microtiter plate method was adopted to investigate the biofilm forming capacity. Alpha hemolysin was detected by culturing MRSA isolates on rabbit blood agar. Furthermore, hla gene was detected in MRSA isolates using conventional PCR technique; while, qRT-PCR method was performed to assay the hla expression in planktonic and biofilm cells in presence and absence of gentamicin. Results: the present results demonstrated that 12 (36.36%) isolates were gentamicin-resistant; whereas, all isolates were resistant to oxacillin and sensitive to vancomycin. Out of 33 MRSA, 3, 23, and 7 isolates formed a weak, moderate, and strong biofilm, respectively. Phenotypically, 30 isolates produced alpha hemolysin on rabbit blood agar plates; nevertheless, hla gene was located in 29 isolates. Of considerable interest, the addition of gentamicin significantly (P < 0.05) reduced the hemolysis activity; while, insignificant fold change (less than two) of hla gene was observed in all tested isolates in the presence of sub MIC of gentamicin (16 µg/ml). Conclusion: gentamicin upregulated the hla gene expression in biofilm cells; hitherto, this increment was isolate specific.
Coupling reaction of 2-amino benzoic acid with 8-hydroxy quinoline gave bidentate azo ligand. The prepared ligand has been identified by Microelemental Analysis,1HNMR,FT-IR and UV-Vis spectroscopic techniques. Treatment of the prepared ligand with the following metal ions (ZnII,CdII and HgII) in aqueous ethanol with a 1:2 M:L ratio and at optimum pH, yielded a series of neutral complexes of the general formula [M(L)2]. The prepared complexes have been characterized by using flame atomic absorption, (C.H.N) Analysis, FT-IR and UV-Vis spectroscopic methods as well as conductivity measurements. The nature of the complexes formed were studied following the mole ratio and continuous variation methods, Beer's law obeyed over a concentration range
... Show MoreIn this paper a system is designed and implemented using a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) to move objects from a pick up location to a delivery location. This transportation of objects is done via a vehicle equipped with a robot arm and an FPGA. The path between the two locations is followed by recognizing a black line between them. The black line is sensed by Infrared sensors (IR) located on the front and on the back of the vehicle. The Robot was successfully implemented by programming the Field Programmable Gate Array with the designed system that was described as a state diagram and the robot operated properly.
In this paper, a procedure to establish the different performance measures in terms of crisp value is proposed for two classes of arrivals and multiple channel queueing models, where both arrival and service rate are fuzzy numbers. The main idea is to convert the arrival rates and service rates under fuzzy queues into crisp queues by using graded mean integration approach, which can be represented as median rule number. Hence, we apply the crisp values obtained to establish the performance measure of conventional multiple queueing models. This procedure has shown its effectiveness when incorporated with many types of membership functions in solving queuing problems. Two numerical illustrations are presented to determine the validity of the
... Show MoreThe possibility of using activated carbon developed from date palm seeds wastes as a permeable reactive barrier (PRB) to remove copper from polluted shallow groundwater was investigated. The activated carbon has been developed from date palm seeds by dehydrating methods using concentrated sulfuric acid. Batch tests were performed to characterize the equilibrium sorption properties of new activated carbon in copper-containing aqueous solutions, while the sandy soil (aquifer) was assumed to be inert. Under the studied conditions, the Langmuir isotherm model gives a better fit for the sorption data of copper by activated carbon than other models. At a pilot scale, One-dimensional column experiments were performed, and an integrated model ba
... Show MoreBackground: The skull base and the hard palate contain many anatomical features that make them rich in information which are useful in sex differentiation; in addition to that they have the ability to resist the hardest environmental conditions that support them in making sex differentiation. Three dimensional computed tomographic techniques has important role in differentiation between sex since it offers images with very accurate data and details of all anatomical structures with high resolution. This study was made to study sex variations among Iraqi sample by craniometric linear measurements of the hard palate and the skull base using 3D reconstructed Computed Tomographic scan. Materials and methods: This study composed of 100 Iraqi su
... Show MoreThe current study used extracts from the aloe vera (AV) plant and the hibiscus sabdariffa flower to make Ag-ZnO nanoparticles (NPs) and Ag-ZnO nanocomposites (NCs). Ag/ZnO NCs were compared to Ag NPs and ZnO NPs. They exhibited unique properties against bacteria and fungi that aren't present in either of the individual parts. The Ag-ZnO NCs from AV showed the best performance against E. coli, with an inhibition zone of up to 27 mm, compared to the other samples. The maximum absorbance peaks were observed at 431 nm and 410 nm for Ag NPs, at 374 nm and 377 nm for ZnO NPs and at 384 nm and 391 nm for Ag-ZnO NCs using AV leaf extract and hibiscus sabdariffa flower extract, respectively. Using field emission-scanning electron microscopes (FE-
... Show MoreThe two-neutron halo-nuclei (17B, 11Li, 8He) was investigated using a two-body nucleon density distribution (2BNDD) with two frequency shell model (TFSM). The structure of valence two-neutron of 17B nucleus in a pure (1d5/2) state and in a pure (1p1/2) state for 11L and 8He nuclei. For our tested nucleus, an efficient (2BNDD's) operator for point nucleon system folded with two-body correlation operator's functions was used to investigate nuclear matter density distributions, root-mean square (rms) radii, and elastic electron scattering form factors. In the nucleon-nucleon forces the correlation took account of
... Show MoreThe study evaluated endophytic communities associated with five oil-bearing plants, including sesame, corn, sunflower, olives and castor, which were collected from Baghdad and Diyala (Iraq), evaluated their oil production capacity and identified metabolites from the lipid fraction. Out of 151 isolates were collected from 21 taxa. Aspergillus niger showed the highest frequency (6.62 %), while the genera Aspergillus and Fusarium were the most dominant endophytes. The highest oil yield was identified and recorded in Aspergillus terreus (24.12 %). While the lowest oil yield was observed in Sclerotinia spp. (3.96 %). Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analysis of A. terreus revealed a profile dominated by pentadecyl acrylate (2
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