According to the prevalence of multidrug resistance bacteria, especially Pseudomonas aeruginosa, in which the essential mechanism of drug resistance is the ability to possess an efflux pump by which extrusion of antimicrobial agents usually occurs, this study aims to detect the presence of mexB multidrug efflux gene in some local isolates of this bacteria that show resistance towards three antibiotics, out of five. Sensitivity test to antibiotics was performed on all isolates by using meropenem (10μg/disc), imipenem (10μg/disc), amikacin (30 μg/disc), ciprofloxacin (5μg/disc) and ceftazidime (30 μg/disc). Conventional PCR results showed the presence of mexB gene (244bp) in four isolates out of ten (40%). In addition,25, 50μg/ml of curcumin was used to detect its efficacy with the antibiotics that the bacteria showed resistance towards. Results showed the highest resistance for ciprofloxacin (80%), while all of them were sensitive to imipenem. In addition, the present results show that both concentrations of curcumin (25, 50μg/ml) were effective in increasing the zone of inhibition from zero to 10 mm for isolates towards amikacin. Same result was obtained towards ciprofloxacin, except for an increase of inhibition zone from zero to 7 mm to one isolate (38T) when treated with 50 μg/ml, and finally an increase in sensitivity to ceftazidime was found and inhibition zone was increased from 8 to 11 for the second isolate (42E), which revealed that curcumin potentiates antibiotics activity by inhibition of efflux pump mechanisms that can be related to the synergetic activity between antibiotics and curcumin.
Community detection is an important and interesting topic for better understanding and analyzing complex network structures. Detecting hidden partitions in complex networks is proven to be an NP-hard problem that may not be accurately resolved using traditional methods. So it is solved using evolutionary computation methods and modeled in the literature as an optimization problem. In recent years, many researchers have directed their research efforts toward addressing the problem of community structure detection by developing different algorithms and making use of single-objective optimization methods. In this study, we have continued that research line by improving the Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm using a
... Show MoreThe angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) I\D gene polymorphism influences the blood ACE enzyme activity. Renoprotective effect of ACE inhibitors (ACEIs) varies among patients due to genetic variation, particularly in Renin-Angiotensin-Aldosterone System genes. This study investigates the genetic variations of ACE I\D and AGT1RA1166C gene polymorphisms in the antiproteinuric effect of ACEI therapy in type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) patients. This is a cross-sectional study that included 76 T2DM patients who are ACEI users, divided into two groups: T2DM without diabetic kidney disease (DKD) included 31 patients, and T2DM with DKD included 45 patients. Urine samples were taken for measurement of urine albumin and creatinine, then calcul
... Show MoreGenetic polymorphisms of genes whose products are responsible for activities, such as xenobiotic metabolism, mutagen detoxification and DNA-repair, have been predicted to be associated with the risk of developing lung cancer (LC). The association of LC with tobacco smoking has been extensively investigated, but no studies have focused on the Arab ethnic- ity. Previously, we examined the association between genetic polymorphisms among Phase I and Phase II metabolism genes and the risk of LC. Here, we extend the data by examining the correlation of OGG1 Ser326Cys combined with CYP1A1 (Ile462Val and MspI) and GSTP1 (Ile105Val and Ala103Val) polymorphisms with the risk of LC. Polymerase chain reaction- restriction fragment length polymorphism (
... Show MoreThe interleukin-1 family has multifaceted roles in men٫s reproductive syste. Out of these is interleukin-1 receptor antagonist (IL-1RN) which exists in men gonads, and in case of infection and inflammatory process, its activity is increased. The current study aims to verify a possible linkage of Variable Number Tandem Repeat (VNTR) polymorphism of the IL-1RN gene with human men infertility. The study groups enrolled included 100 infertile men and 100 fertile and healthy men. Their seminal fluids were subjected to analysis. Also peripheral blood samples were collected for the assessment or detection of polymorphic Variable Number Tandem Repeats (VNTR) polymorphism of interleukin-1 receptor antagonist gene (IL-1RN). Two a
... Show MoreBackground: Malignant lymphoma is the generic term given to tumors of the lymphoid system and specifically of lymphocytes and their precursor cells, While all lymphomas are malignant neoplasms, there is a wide spectrum of clinical behavior, with some following an indolent clinical course and others behaving in an aggressive manner (will causing death in a short time frame if left untreated). The metastatic process involves intravasation and extravasation of tumor cells, followed by reimplantation of tumor cells, formation of a new tumor stoma, Degradation of the extracellular matrix and components of the basement membrane by proteases facilitates the detachment of tumor cells, their crossing of tissue boundaries, and invasion into adjacent
... Show MoreThe fingerprints are the more utilized biometric feature for person identification and verification. The fingerprint is easy to understand compare to another existing biometric type such as voice, face. It is capable to create a very high recognition rate for human recognition. In this paper the geometric rotation transform is applied on fingerprint image to obtain a new level of features to represent the finger characteristics and to use for personal identification; the local features are used for their ability to reflect the statistical behavior of fingerprint variation at fingerprint image. The proposed fingerprint system contains three main stages, they are: (i) preprocessing, (ii) feature extraction, and (iii) matching. The preprocessi
... Show MoreThere is various human biometrics used nowadays, one of the most important of these biometrics is the face. Many techniques have been suggested for face recognition, but they still face a variety of challenges for recognizing faces in images captured in the uncontrolled environment, and for real-life applications. Some of these challenges are pose variation, occlusion, facial expression, illumination, bad lighting, and image quality. New techniques are updating continuously. In this paper, the singular value decomposition is used to extract the features matrix for face recognition and classification. The input color image is converted into a grayscale image and then transformed into a local ternary pattern before splitting the image into
... Show MoreForty-eight aborted women (Iraqi Arab Muslims) at the first trimester with a serological evidence of toxoplasmosis were investigated. Two age- and ethnic-matched control groups were included: 40 aborted women due to accidental events (Control I), and 40 unmarried (virgin) women (Control II). The subjects were evaluated for the following parameters: HLA-class I antigens (A, B and Cw), blood groups, total and differential counts of leukocytes, lymphocyte subpopulations (CD3+, CD4+ and CD20+ cells), phagocytosis of heat-killed yeast (phagocytic index and NBT index), and total serum levels of immunoglobulins (IgA, IgG and IgM) and complement components (C3 and C4). The HLA-A2 and -Cw8 antigens were significantly increased in the patien
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