Sphingomonas paucimobilis, is a yellow-pigmented, aerobic, non fermentative, gram negative motile bacillus. S. paucimobilis which is widely found in nature and hospital environments rarely cause serious or life threatening infections. In this report, a case of hospital acquired bloodstream infection due to S. paucimobilis in a patient with Down syndrome who was on treatment for presumed pneumonia is presented.A one year-old child patient who was a known case of Down syndrome and had previously experienced cardiac surgery was hospitalized and treated for pneumonia. On the 12th day of hospitalization, blood cultures were taken because of a high body temperature. One of the blood cultures was positive for gram-negative rods. After 48 hour of incubation, the sub-cultures on blood agar medium yielded pure growth of a yellow, non-fermentative, gram-negative, rod-shaped bacterium. The microorganism was positive for oxidase, and esculin hydrolysis, while negative for urea and nitrate reduction, citrate utilisation and motility. The isolate had been identified as S. paucimobilis by using Vitek 2 system. The antibiotic susceptibility test was also performed with the same system and the strain was found to be susceptible to piperacillin-tazobactam and other antibiotics. Treatment with intravenous piperacilin-tazobactam (150 mg/kg/day) was initiated. He responded well to the treatment and was discharged after 10 days. This case is reported to emphasize that S. paucimobilis should be kept in mind as a nosocomial infectious agent in patients with Down syndrome and immunosuppressive patients and the infections should be treated according to the sensitivity test results.

Thioredoxin (Trx) is a redox active protein that regulates several physiological and biochemical functions, such as growth, apoptosis and cellular defense. The function of Trx itself is regulated by thioredoxin reductase (TrxR). Studies performed in a variety of human primary tumors have shown that thioredoxin reductase 1 (TrxR1) is overexpressed in tumoral tissues compared with corresponding normal tissues. This study was designed to determine the expression of TrxR1 in astrocytoma tissues of different World Health Organization (WHO) grades (grade I-IV). The proliferative (Ki-67) and apoptotic indices of the specimens were also investigated for correlation analysis. Astrocytoma tissues were extracted from the histopathological specimens of 40 patients. These samples included seven histologically normal brain tissues that served as a control group and ten tumoral samples for each grade of astrocytoma (grade I-IV). The histologically normal brain tissues were obtained from the non-tumoral portions of the pathological specimens of grade I (2 cases), grade II (2 cases), grade III (2 cases) and grade IV (1 case) astrocytomas. TrxR1 expression was evaluated using quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) and immunostaining. The proliferative and apoptotic indices of the specimens were investigated by Ki-67 immunostaining and TUNEL assay, respectively. TrxR1 expression, as assessed by qRT-PCR, increased significantly with astrocytoma grade (p = 0.01). The immunostaining intensity of TrxR1 in grade IV astrocytomas was significantly greater than that in the control tissue and all other astrocytoma grades (p < 0.001). Similarly, immunostaining intensity of TrxR1 in the grade III astrocytomas was significantly greater than that in the control group and grade I astrocytomas (p < 0.001). All astrocytoma tissues showed more intense staining in ascending grades, but the differences between grade I and the control, grade II and the control, grades II and I, grades III and II were not statistically significant (p > 0.05). Ki-67 index values increased significant in accordance with grade progression (p = 0.01). The apoptotic index values were not significantly different in any group (p > 0.05); however, the differences between grade IV and the control and between grades IV and I were statistically significant (p < 0.05). Expression of TrxR1, as assessed by both qRT-PCR and immunostaining, correlated highly with both the astrocytoma grade and Ki-67 index.

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Background: Different serological tests are used in serologic diagnosis of brucellosis. The most widely used of these are Standard Tube Agglutination and Coombs anti-brucella tests. Whereas ELISA Ig M and Ig G tests have been in use for a long time, immuncapture agglutination test has been recently introduced and used in serological diagnosis. The aim of this study was to compare diagnostic values of ELISA Ig M and Ig G and immuncapture agglutination tests with Coombs anti-brucella test.Methods: Sera from 200 patients with presumptive diagnosis of brucellosis were included into the study. Coombs anti-brucella test, ELISA Ig M and Ig G tests and Immuncapture test were investigated in these sera. Then, sensitivity, specificity, negative predictive and positive predictive values were calculated.Results: Sensitivity, specificity, negative predictive and positive predictive values were found to be 90,6 %, 76,3 %, 94,2 %, and 65,9 % respectively for the Immuncapture test, whereas they were found to be 73,7 %, 58,9 %, 84,2 %, and 42,8 % for Ig G and 72,2 %, 67,8 %, 85,2 %, and 48,7 % for Ig M. The Immuncapture test was found to be compatible with ELISA Ig M and Ig G tests but it was statistically incompatible with Coombs anti-brucella test.Conclusions: Immuncapture agglutination test yields similar results to those of Coombs anti-brucella test. This test is a useful test by virtue of the fact that it determines blocking antibodies in the diagnosis and follow-up of brucellosis.

Purpose of the studyThe aim of this study was to investigate the relationship of B cell-mediated immunity with disease severity and mortality in patients with COVID-19.Study designIn this retrospective cohort and single-centre study, 208 patients with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 were recruited. A COVID-19 severity score, ranging from 0 to 10, was used to evaluate associations between various factors. Serum immunoglobulin levels and the number of cells in B lymphocyte subsets were measured and their association with disease severity and mortality in patients with COVID-19 examined.ResultsThe median age of the patients was 50 (35–63) years and 88 (42%) were female. The number of deceased patients was 17. The median COVID-19 severity score was 8 (6–8) in deceased patients and 1 (0–2) in survivors. Deceased patients had significantly lower levels of total B lymphocytes, naive B cells, switched memory B cells, and serum IgA, IgG, IgG1 and IgG2 than recovered patients (all p<0.05). In addition, a significant negative correlation was found between the number of these parameters and COVID-19 severity scores. Decrease in the number of total B cells and switched memory B cells as well as lower serum IgA, IgG and IgG1 levels were independent risk factors for mortality in patients with COVID-19.ConclusionIn the present study, the prognosis of patients with COVID-19 was shown to be associated with the B cell subset and serum immunoglobulin levels.