SUMMARY The moderately halophilic heterotrophic aerobic bacteria form a diverse group of microorganisms. The property of halophilism is widespread within the bacterial domain. Bacterial halophiles are abundant in environments such as salt lakes, saline soils, and salted food products. Most species keep their intracellular ionic concentrations at low levels while synthesizing or accumulating organic solutes to provide osmotic equilibrium of the cytoplasm with the surrounding medium. Complex mechanisms of adjustment of the intracellular environments and the properties of the cytoplasmic membrane enable rapid adaptation to changes in the salt concentration of the environment. Approaches to the study of genetic processes have recently been developed for several moderate halophiles, opening the way toward an understanding of haloadaptation at the molecular level. The new information obtained is also expected to contribute to the development of novel biotechnological uses for these organisms.

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BACKGROUND: This study aimed to show the longitudinal use of routinely collected clinical data from history and ultrasound evaluation of the endometrium in developing an algorithm to predict the risk of endometrial carcinoma for postmenopausal women presenting with vaginal bleeding. METHODS: This prospective study collected data from 3047 women presenting with postmenopausal bleeding. Data regarding the presence of risk factors for endometrial cancer was collected and univariate and multivariate analyses were performed. RESULTS: Age distribution ranged from 35 to 97 years with a median of 59 years. A total of 149 women (5% of total) were diagnosed with endometrial carcinoma. Women in the endometrial cancer group were significantly more likely to be older, have higher BMI, recurrent episodes of bleeding, diabetes, hypertension, or a previous history of breast cancer. An investigator best model selection approach was used to select the best predictors of cancer, and using logistic regression analysis we created a model, 'Norwich DEFAB', which is a clinical prediction rule for endometrial cancer. The calculated Norwich DEFAB score can vary from a value of 0 to 9. A Norwich DEFAB value equal to or greater than 3 has a positive predictive value (PPV) of 7.78% and negative predictive value (NPV) of 98.2%, whereas a score equal to or greater than 5 has a PPV of 11.9% and NPV of 97.8%. CONCLUSION: The combination of clinical information with our investigation tool for women with postmenopausal vaginal bleeding allows the clinician to calculate a predicted risk of endometrial malignancy and prioritise subsequent clinical investigations.

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The tolerance patterns, expressed as MICs, for 250 moderately halophilic eubacteria to 10 heavy metals were surveyed by using an agar dilution method. The moderate halophiles tested included 12 culture collection strains and fresh isolates representative of Deleya halophila (37 strains), Acinetobacter sp. (24 strains), Flavobacterium sp. (28 strains), and 149 moderately halophilic gram-positive cocci included in the genera Marinococcus, Sporosarcina, Micrococcus, and Staphylococcus. On the basis of the MICs, the collection strains showed, overall, similar responses to silver, cobalt, mercury, nickel, lead, and zinc. All were sensitive to silver, mercury, and zinc and tolerant of lead. The response to arsenate, cadmium, chromium, and copper was very heterogeneous. The metal susceptibility levels of the 238 freshly isolated strains were, in general, very heterogeneous among the four taxonomic groups as well as within the strains included in each group. The highest toxicities were found with mercury, silver, and zinc, while arsenate showed the lowest activity. All these strains were tolerant of nickel, lead, and chromium and sensitive to silver and mercury. Acinetobacter sp. strains were the most heavy-metal tolerant, with the majority of them showing tolerance of eight different metal ions. In contrast, Flavobacterium sp. strains were the most metal sensitive. The influence of salinity and yeast extract concentrations of the culture medium on the toxicity of the heavy metals tested for some representative strains was also studied. Lowering the salinity, in general, led to enhanced sensitivity to cadmium and, in some cases, to cobalt and copper. However, increasing the salinity resulted in only a slight decrease in the cadmium, copper, and nickel toxicities. Reduction in the yeast extract concentration resulted in an increased sensitivity to all metals, especially when this component was lowered to 0.01% (wt/vol). In contrast, a higher concentration only slightly lessened the toxicities of nickel and zinc.