Background and Objective:Acinetobacter is a genus of non-fermenting Gram-negative cocci or coccobacilli, which have low nutritional requirements for growth and can survive for a long time in adverse conditions, on dry surfaces, and also in aqueous environments. The importance of the members of Acinetobacter genus as pathogens involved in nosocomial infections, is increasing. Acinetobacter baumannii is the most common species involved in a broad spectrum of nosocomial infections, including pneumonia, bacteremia, surgical wound infections, urinary tract infections, and meningitis. In this study, enterobacterial repetitive intergenic consensus sequence-based PCR (ERIC-PCR) technique was used for analysis and molecular typing of Acinetobacter strains, which has high discrimination power compared to phenotypic markers. Methods:In the present study, a total of 40 A. baumanniies strains were isolated from patients hospitalized in Tehran hospitals. After identification and confirmation of the isolates by serotyping and biochemical tests, a single colony of each isolate was cultured on liquid LB medium, and after DNA extraction, PCR was performed. After electrophoresis of PCR product, gel images were stored electronically for analysis and comparison of the isolates. Results:In this study, 40 strains of A. baumannii were analyzed by ERIC-PCR method, of which 29 strains were typed into 10 groups and 11 other strains had no PCR bands or had a band that could not be assigned to any of the above groups. Conclusion:In this study, it was found that A. baumanniie strains could be typed using repetitive sequences. This extent of polymorphism shows that ERIC-PCR is a useful method for analysis of genetic variation of A. baumannii strains. High genetic variation of A. baumannii strains may be due to wide geographical distribution of this species in Iran

Amyloid fibrils, including β-amyloid (Aβ) fibrils, are protein aggregates that form under certain conditions, associated with neurodegeneration that interfere with neural synaptic transmission resulting in some neural disorders, such as Alzheimer's disease. The aim of this study is to inhibit amyloidogenesis by using preparatory polymeric nanomicelles as therapeutic agents and also as nanocarriers for curcumin to target Aβ fibrils through the glycation method of bovine serum albumin (BSA) in the presence of phosphate-buffered saline. Polymeric nanomicelles were prepared from phosphatidylethanolamine-distearoyl methoxypolyethylene glycol conjugates in the presence and absence of curcumin and then the morphological and structural characteristics of the nanomicelles were characterized in detail. Following the preparation of unloaded and curcumin-loaded nanomicelles with the desired size and properties, their effects on BSA glycation/fibrillation process were investigated. The samples were analyzed by thioflavin T (ThT) fluorescence and advanced glycation end (AGE) products autofluorescence measurements. The results showed that ThT fluorescence related to the formation of β-sheets and AGE autofluorescence (associated with AGE production) decreased in the presence of curcumin-loaded nanomicelles more than other samples. In conclusion, the promising effect of curcumin-loaded nanomicelles on inhibition of amyloidogenesis through glycation process due to curcumin release and thus their ability to prevent the formation and accumulation of amyloid fibrils and so to suppress the Alzheimer's disease progression has been proven and can go for further investigations.

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