Antinociceptive and anti-inflammatory activities of the ethanol extract from Annona muricata L. leaves were investigated in animal models. The extract delivered per oral route (p.o.) reduced the number of abdominal contortions by 14.42% (at a dose of 200 mg/kg) and 41.41% (400 mg/kg). Doses of 200 and 400 mg/kg (p.o) inhibited both phases of the time paw licking: first phase (23.67% and 45.02%) and the second phase (30.09% and 50.02%), respectively. The extract (p.o.) increased the reaction time on a hot plate at doses of 200 (30.77% and 37.04%) and 400 mg/kg (82.61% and 96.30%) after 60 and 90 minutes of treatment, respectively. The paw edema was reduced by the ethanol extract (p.o.) at doses of 200 (23.16% and 29.33%) and 400 mg/kg (29.50% and 37.33%) after 3 to 4 h of application of carrageenan, respectively. Doses of 200 and 400 mg/kg (p.o.), administered 4 h before the carrageenan injection, reduced the exudate volume (29.25 and 45.74%) and leukocyte migration (18.19 and 27.95%) significantly. These results suggest that A. muricata can be an active source of substances with antinociceptive and anti-inflammatory activities.

Biochemical methods employed to classify bacterial species have limitations and may have contributed to the taxonomic complexity recently reported for the genus Klebsiella. The objective of the present study was to apply a simple biochemical test panel to classify a collection of human Klebsiella isolates. We found that with only three additional tests, it is possible to place most isolates in a defined species. Analysis of a 512-bp sequence of the rpoB gene was used as the reference. A total of 16 conventional and 4 supplementary tests were used to evaluate 122 recent isolates identified as Klebsiella from 120 patients, isolated at the clinical laboratory of a university hospital in Minas Gerais, Brazil. Of these, 102 (84%) isolates were identified as Klebsiella pneumoniae or Klebsiella variicola, 19 (15%) as Klebsiella oxytoca, and 1 (1%) as Raoultella planticola. Enterobacterial repetitive intergenic consensus-PCR typing revealed a diversity of genotypes. rpoB gene sequencing confirmed the phenotypic identification and detected five K. variicola isolates among the K. pneumoniae/K. variicola group. Three additional tests that include growth at 10°C and histamine and D-melezitose assimilation should be considered essential tests for the typing of Klebsiella isolates.

No abstract

A 45-year-old-male presented with severe pancreatitis. Two bacterial isolates obtained from peritoneal fluid and abdominal purulent secretion were identified to the species level by 15 biochemical tests and four supplementary tests as Raoultella planticola. Identification was confirmed by rpoB gene sequencing. R. planticola is difficult to identify in the clinical laboratory, and the clinical significance of this isolation remains uncharacterized. This is the first report of pancreatitis with a primary infection by R. planticola. IntroductionRaoultella planticola was first described as Klebsiella planticola in 1981 (Bagley et al., 1981) and as Klebsiella trevisanii in 1983 (Ferragut et al., 1983). In 1986, the two organisms were placed in the same species because of their extensive DNA sequence similarity (Gavini et al., 1986). In 2001, based on 16S rRNA gene and rpoB sequence analysis, the new genus Raoultella was created, and the name R. planticola was proposed to accommodate K. planticola (Drancourt et al., 2001).R. planticola was initially seen as an aquatic, botanic and soil bacterium. However, in 1984, a human infection caused by this organism was reported: a patient with sepsis, admitted to an intensive care unit in France (Freney et al., 1984). Two other cases were later described: a bloodstream infection after a mitral valve replacement for infective endocarditis and a bacteraemic pneumonia after coronary artery graft surgery (Freney et al., 1986). No other case reports or case series of infections caused by R. planticola have been published, and the clinical spectrum of diseases caused by this organism is unknown. The correct identification of Raoultella is not easily accomplished in most clinical microbiology laboratories, and isolates can be easily misidentified as Klebsiella pneumoniae or Klebsiella oxytoca (Monnet & Freney, 1994). In the present report, we describe a patient with pancreatitis with a primary infection by R. planticola. Case reportOn 2 September 2003, a 45-year-old male patient was admitted to a small (80 beds) public general hospital in Juiz de Fora, Minas Gerais state, Brazil, with abdominal pain, diarrhoea and a 30-year history of alcoholism. After 10 days of treatment for a suspect pneumonia and no invasive procedures, abdominal symptoms persisted and the patient was transferred to Hospital Universitário of Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora on 12 September 2003. On admission, he had abdominal pain, vomiting, diarrhoea and fever. Chest X-ray and an abdominal CT scan revealed a small left pleural effusion and two abdominal fluid collections. Ciprofloxacin and metronidazole were started. On September 16, the patient underwent an exploratory laparotomy. Pancreatitis with a retroperitoneal abscess was diagnosed, with inflammation of pancreatic body and tail. A Gram-negative bacterial isolate was obtained as pure culture from the peritoneal fluid collected before surgery (isolate K111) and from abdominal pyogenic secretion obtained during surgery (isolate K112). Other clinical spec...