Introduction: The stringent response is a bacterial adaptation mechanism triggered by stress conditions, including nutrient limitation. This response helps bacteria survive under harsh conditions, such as those encountered during infection. A key feature of the stringent response is the synthesis of the alarmone (p)ppGpp, which influences various bacterial phenotypes. In several bacterial species, stringent response activation significantly affects biofilm formation and maintenance. Methods: Clinical specimens were collected from multiple hospitals in Baghdad, Iraq. Staphylococcus aureus was identified using conventional biochemical tests. The PCR technique was applied to detect mecA, icaA, and icaD genes, while the Vitek 2 compact system confirmed Methicillin sensitivity in mecA-negative isolates. Biofilm intensity of all S. aureus isolates was assessed under normal and starved conditions. Additionally, the gene expression levels of icaA and icaD were measured in five MRSA and five MSSA strains under both conditions. Results: The mecA, icaA, and icaD genes were detected in 94%, 96.3%, and 100% of S. aureus isolates, respectively. Biofilm production analysis showed that 24% of isolates were strong producers, 49% were moderate producers, and 9% were weak producers. Statistical analysis indicated that biofilm intensity significantly decreased under nutrient limitation (p < 0.0001) compared to normal conditions across all isolates. Furthermore, icaA and icaD genes were upregulated under stringent response conditions, regardless of Methicillin resistance status. Conclusion: The stringent response influences S. aureus biofilm formation, with biofilm intensity decreasing under nutrient-limited conditions. However, the upregulation of icaA and icaD genes suggests a regulatory role of the stringent response in biofilm-related gene expression. These findings highlight the potential impact of stress adaptation mechanisms on bacterial persistence and pathogenicity.
Global warming has a serious impact on the survival of organisms. Very few studies have considered the effect of global warming as a mathematical model. The effect of global warming on the carrying capacity of prey and predators has not been studied before. In this article, an ecological model describing the relationship between prey and predator and the effect of global warming on the carrying capacity of prey was studied. Moreover, the wind speed was considered an influencing factor in the predation process after developing the function that describes it. From a biological perspective, the nonnegativity and uniform bounded of all solutions for the model are proven. The existence of equilibria for the model and its local stability is inves
... Show MorePurpose: To evaluate the effect of intravitreal Aflibercept injection on wet AMD both functionally and anatomically after loading doses. The secondary aim is to evaluate the effect of risk factors including (gender, age, smoking, hypertension, and diabetes meatus) on the patient’s response. Study Design: Interventional case series. Place and Duration of Study: Al-Haitham Eyes Teaching Hospital in Baghdad, Iraq, from November 2021 and September 2022. Methods: Fifty eyes of 47 patients with treatment naïve wet AMD were selected through convenient sampling. Data were collected for age, gender, smoking, and chronic disease. Clinical examination, best corrected visual acuity (BCVA), optical coherence tomography angiography
... Show MoreThe way artists deal with body in their artistic works has had so many forms and methods, whether as an object for their drawings or as a material to create live artistic performances that relate to the idea of correspondence and interaction between different artistic categories such as: drama, dance, and painting as it is the case of the artist Marina Abramovic who has always used her body as an artistic unit to generate meaning and to perform her lively shows.
To go deeper into her career, our work was divided into 3 sections:
The first section was devoted to follow the main artistic stages that her body had gone through, starting with paintings she performed using concepts based on acting, simulation and nudity and ending wi
Item Difficulty and Item Discrimination Coefficient for School and College Ability Tests (SCAT) Advanced Form in Classical Test Theory (CTT) and Item Response Theory (IRT) and the Correlation among Them Mohammad moqasqas Haifa T. Albokai Assistant Professor of Measurement and Evaluation Associate Professor of Measurement and Evaluation College of Education, Taibah University The aim of this study was to study the item difficulty and item discrimination of the SCAT (advance form) with CTT, and IRT, and to study the correlation among them. To do this, the researchers used the data of their previous study, which conducted in (2011). It consisted of (3943) subject. Then, they used two-statistical programs (TAP, Bilog-MG-3) to obtain the item
... Show MoreAcinetobacter baumannii (A. baumannii ) is considered a critical healthcare problem for patients in intensive care units due to its high ability to be multidrug-resistant to most commercially available antibiotics. The aim of this study is to develop a colorimetric assay to quantitatively detect the target DNA of A. baumannii based on unmodified gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) from different clinical samples (burns, surgical wounds, sputum, blood and urine). A total of thirty-six A. baumannii clinical isolates were collected from five Iraqi hospitals in Erbil and Mosul provinces within the period from September 2020 to January 2021. Bacterial isolation and biochemical identification of isolates
... Show MoreMyelosuppression is one of the serious adverse effects of cancer chemotherapy that lead to life threatening febrile neutropenia and considered a limiting factor for successful therapy. Cyclophosphamide a widely used anticancer drugs, induces severe bone marrow suppression by damaging hematopoietic stem cells. As cancer incidence expands globally, the demand for an effective myeloprotective therapy during cancer treatment is also increasing.Nigella sativa seed oil, a well-known plant extract that widely used for various health conditions. This study aims to evaluate the myeloprotective activity of Nigella sativa seed oil in cyclophosphamide-induced myelosuppression mice model. Myelosuppression induced by single intraperitoneal injection o
... Show MoreInflammatory control is essential to diminish injury and make renal injury treatment simpler. Proposed therapeutics have primarily targeted pro-inflammatory variables. Juniperus oxycedrus was frequently used to treat a variety of infectious disorders, hyperglycemia, obesity, TB, bronchitis, inflammation, and pneumonia. Juniperus oxycedrus twigs and leaves were defatted with n-hexane using Soxhlet apparatus then the residue of plant material dried and re-extracted sequentially by two different solvents Ethylacetate and methanol. The pro-inflammatory markers IL-1 and iNOS, as well as the potential kidney biomarker KIM-1, TNF-α, and transcription factor NF-KB were measured using the RealTime Quantitative qPCR method. The results showed that J
... Show MoreInflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a common chronic inflammatory disease of the gastrointestinal tract, including ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease. ulcerative colitis (UC) disease is characterized by chronic, persistent, recurrent, and nonspecific intestinal ulcers and mucosal inflammation. This study investigated the protective effects of cinnamic acid on dextran sodium sulfate (DSS) induced ulcerative colitis in mice. Forty adult male mice were collected and randomly divided into five groups, group Ӏ received a suspension of distill water and poloxamer, and group ӀӀ received 3% DSS in drinking water for 7 consecutive days. Two treatment groups received an oral suspension of cinnamic acid 50 and 25 mg/kg respectively an
... Show MoreIn this study, the possible protective effects of daidzein on ifosfamide-induced neurotoxicity in male rats were examined by the determination of changes in selected oxidant–antioxidant markers of male rats’ brain tissue.
Twenty-eight (28) apparently-healthy Wistar male rats weighing (120-150gm) allocated into 4 groups (n=7) were used in this study. Rats orally-administered 1% tween 20 dissolved in distilled water/Control (Group I); rats were orally-administered daidzein suspension (100mg/kg) for 7 days (Group II); rats intraperitoneally-injected with a single dose of ifosfamide (500 mg/kg) (Group III); rats orally-administered for 7 days with the daidzein (100mg/
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