To further understand the epidemiology of Streptococcus pyogenes or group A streptococcus (GAS) infections in Tunisia, phenotypic and genomic markers of GAS isolates, including antibiotic susceptibility, biotypes, T and emm types and toxin gene profiles, have been characterized. A total of 103 isolates, collected between 2000 and 2006, were investigated; 47 were recovered from invasive infections, and 56 from non-invasive infections. Rates of resistance to tetracycline, erythromycin, clindamycin and rifampin were 70.8%, 4.8%, 4.8% and 0.9%, respectively. High levels of resistance to streptomycin and kanamycin were observed in 1.9% and 4.8% of isolates, respectively. Biotype 3 was most common. Twenty different T patterns were observed, with a predominance of T3/13/B3264, and 38 different emm types. In both invasive and non-invasive isolates, emm118 (9.7%), emm42 (8.7%), emm1 (7.8%), st432 (6.8%), emm28 (5.8%) and emm76 (5.8%) were the most prevalent types; emm1, emm76 and emm18 were mainly observed among invasive infections, whereas emm118 (12.5%), emm42 (10.7%) and emm28 (8.9%) were predominant among non-invasive infections. The speB gene was detected in all isolates, but there were variable frequencies of speA, speC and ssa (20.3%, 32% and 25.2% respectively). Significant associations of emm1, emm18 and emm3 with speA and of emm4 and st432 with ssa were found. This first report from Tunisia revealed a unique emm distribution of GAS that differs from those of other regions. This information on the distribution of such emm types will be useful for the development of an appropriate vaccine in a country where the incidence of rheumatic fever remains high.

No abstract

One hundred and thirty one isolates of Rhizoctonia spp. were isolated from faba bean plants showing root rot and stem canker collected from different fields in Delta region of Egypt. Forty six isolates were found to be polynucleate and the remaining isolates were binucleates. According to morphological features of isolates, they were classified into 12 groups. Polynucleate isolates were identified as Rhizoctonia solani (Kühn). The most aggressive isolate of R. solani was identified according to sequences of ITS1-5.8S rDNA-ITS4 and the sequence was compared with Thanatephorus cucumeris (teleomorphic phase) and other R. solani (NCBI GenBank). Sequence and comparison revealed that this isolate is R. solani AG4-HGI. Anastomosis test carried out between molecular identified isolate and 11 randomly chosen isolates resembles all groups of polynucleate R. solani. All tested isolates were completely fused between each other indicating that the prevalent AG of R. solani on faba bean is AG4-HG1.