Background: Legionella pneumophila (L. pneumophila) is gram-negative bacterium, which causes Legionnaires’ disease as well as Pontiac fever. Objective: To determine the frequency of Legionella pneumophila in pneumonic patients, to determine the clinical utility of diagnosing Legionella pneumonia by urinary antigen testing (LPUAT) in terms of sensitivity and specificity, to compares the results obtained from patients by urinary antigen test with q Real Time PCR (RT PCR) using serum samples and to determine the frequency of serogroup 1 and other serogroups of L. pneumophila. Methods: A total of 100 pneumonic patients (community acquired pneumonia) were enrolled in this study during a period between October 2016 to April 2017; 92 samples were collected from patients attended and admitted to Al-Imamein Al-Kadhimein Medical City and 8 samples from those in the (Center of Kidney Diseases and Transplantation) in the Medical City of Baghdad. All patients were under therapy with antibiotics. Serum and urine specimens were obtained from all patients; urine samples were processed for urinary antigen test (rapid test). Serum samples were collected and submitted to DNA extraction for detection of L. pneumophila mip gene by q RT PCR assay. Results: The percentage of L. pneumophila in two hospitals in Bagdad was 30%. Of these 26% was serogroup 1 detected by urinary antigen testing (UAT). In the other hand, 23% of samples were positive by q RT PCR based mip gene, of these 19 % were serogroup 1 and 4% were another serogroup. The sensitivity of UAT is high (P value < 0.001), which means statistically highly significance than q RT PCR. Conclusion: LPUAT is a rapid tool for early diagnosis of Legionella infection, which highlights the need of using this test in hospitals and health institutions and there is a high prevalence of L. pneumophila in Iraq that refer to the necessity of considering this microorganism point of view in future studies for detection and treatment in pneumonic patients. Keywords: L. pneumophila, mip gene, quantitative real time PCR, urinary antigen. Citation: Gauad SA, Abdulrahman TR, Muhamad AK, Jawad AA, Hassan JS. Clinical utility of urinary antigen test and molecular method for detection of Legionella pneumophila. Iraqi JMS. 2018; 16(2): 207-215. doi: 10.22578/IJMS.16.2.13
In Present study, 25 clinical isolates of Proteus spp. of clinical samples, urine, wounds and burns collected from different hospitals in Baghdad city, all isolates were identified as Proteus mirabilis using different bacteriological media, biochemical assays and Vitek-2 system. It was found that 15 (60%) isolates were identifying as P. mirabilis. The susceptibility of P. mirabilis isolates to cefotaxime was 66.6 %, while to ceftazidime was 20%. Extended spectrum β-lactamses producing Proteus was 30.7 %. DNA of 5 isolates of P. mirabilis was extracted and detection for blaVEB-1 gene by using multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Results showed that the presence of this gene in all tested isolates, as an important indicator for increas
... Show More98 samples were collected from various clinical sources included (Burns, wounds, urines, sputums, blood) From the city of Baghdad, After performing the biochemical and microscopic examination, 52 isolates were obtained for Pseudomonas aeruginosa, 17 (32.7%) isolates from burn infection, 12 (23%) isolates from Wound infection 11 (21.2%) isolates from urine infection, 7 (13.5%) isolates of sputum and 5 (9.6%) isolates from blood. Bacteria susceptibility to form biofilm has been detectedby microtiter plate method, The results showed that 80% of the bacterial isolates were produced the biofilm with different proportions, alg D gene (alginate production) has been detected by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) Which plays an essential role in the fo
... Show MoreRecently, there has been an increase in the prevalence of ulcerative colitis (UC), and inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) worldwide, especially in certain recently industrialized countries like China and In¬dia. Globally, the prevalence of UC, a chronic illness that affects the large intestine, is rising. Fifty adherent invasive Escherichia coli (AIEC) isolates were identified from ulcerative colitis biopsy samples originating from the Gastrointestinal tract (GIT) and Hepatology teaching hospitals/medical city in Baghdad City. The test’s results demonstrated that the AIEC isolates had a high level of resistance to the majority of the an-tibiotics under investigation. Enterobacterial Repetitive Intergenic Consensus (ERIC-PCR) and m
... Show MoreDiarrhea is a real disease in childhood which could cause death. Therefore, this study was conducted to isolate Salmonella from 350 stool samples taken from children under five years in age, suffering from diarrhea during the period from March 2019 to March 2020 in Tikrit city / Iraq. The results showed the possibility to isolate ten isolates of Salmonella enterica subsp. Enterica, an infection rate, represents 2.875% of the total rate of patients who suffer from diarrhea. The virulence genes were investigated for ten isolates of S. enterica subsp. enterica, the result is that all isolates possessed the genes stn, invA, lpfA with an appearance percentage of 100%, whi
... Show MoreSalmonella infections are a major cause of foodborne infection in both humans and animals. Some serotypes are capable of inducing severe clinical manifestations, including gastroenteritis, septicemia, and abortion. The present study aimed to identify, isolate, and detect Salmonella Agona in cats with diarrhea in Al-Anbar Governorate, Iraq, and to evaluate the antimicrobial resistance profiles of the recovered isolates. Between November 2024 and May 2025, 100 fecal samples were collected from cats of different breeds presenting with diarrhea at veterinary clinics in Iraq. These samples were processed using established culture methods, including pre-enrichment in buffered peptone water followed by selective enrichment in tetrathionate
... Show MoreCovalent modification of protein by drugs may disrupt self-tolerance, leading to lymphocyte activation. Until now, determination of the threshold required for this process has not been possible. Therefore, we performed quantitative mass spectrometric analyses to define the epitopes formed in tolerant and hypersensitive patients taking the β-lactam antibiotic piperacillin and the threshold required for T cell activation. A hydrolyzed piperacillin hapten was detected on four lysine residues of human serum albumin (HSA) isolated from tolerant patients. The level of modified Lys541 ranged from 2.6 to 4.8%. Analysis of plasma from hypersensitive patients revealed the same pattern and leve
Until recently, researchers have utilized and applied various techniques for intrusion detection system (IDS), including DNA encoding and clustering that are widely used for this purpose. In addition to the other two major techniques for detection are anomaly and misuse detection, where anomaly detection is done based on user behavior, while misuse detection is done based on known attacks signatures. However, both techniques have some drawbacks, such as a high false alarm rate. Therefore, hybrid IDS takes advantage of combining the strength of both techniques to overcome their limitations. In this paper, a hybrid IDS is proposed based on the DNA encoding and clustering method. The proposed DNA encoding is done based on the UNSW-NB15
... Show MoreCybersecurity refers to the actions that are used by people and companies to protect themselves and their information from cyber threats. Different security methods have been proposed for detecting network abnormal behavior, but some effective attacks are still a major concern in the computer community. Many security gaps, like Denial of Service, spam, phishing, and other types of attacks, are reported daily, and the attack numbers are growing. Intrusion detection is a security protection method that is used to detect and report any abnormal traffic automatically that may affect network security, such as internal attacks, external attacks, and maloperations. This paper proposed an anomaly intrusion detection system method based on a
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