Recognition of Corynebacterium pseudodiphtheriticum by Toll-like receptors and up-regulation of antimicrobial peptides in human corneal epithelial cells

Characterization of Ocular Clinical Isolates of Pseudomonas aeruginosa from Non-Contact Lens Related Keratitis Patients from South India

“…Thirty-four clinical isolates were obtained from Jhaveri Microbiology Centre, LV Prasad Eye Institute, and two laboratory strains, PAO1 and PA14 (a kind gift from Dr. Urs Jenal, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland) were used in this study and approved by the Institutional Review Board. For clinical isolates, corneal ulcer scrapings collected aseptically were investigated for bacterial and identification, following the Institute protocol as described earlier [31]. Briefly, ulcer scrapings were placed on two glass slides (Gram stain and 10% potassium hydroxide with 0.1% calcofluor white) for direct microscopy and also inoculated in different specific media for bacterial cultures.…”

Bacterial peptide transporters: Messengers of nutrition to virulence

“…Once peptides are being imported, they may get degraded to generate amino acids. Also, antimicrobial peptides produced by the host, upon bacterial infection, 84 can be digested by the pathogen generating amino acids. 85 Besides serving as essential building blocks of cells, these amino acids may also play a more direct role in virulence.…”

Corynebacterium pseudodiphtheriticum: Putative probiotic, opportunistic infector, emerging pathogen

“…In frame of this project, also genes encoding antibiotic resistance determinants, arsenate and heavy metal detoxification systems and a putative hemolysin were annotated 5. Data of the host response to C. pseudodiphtheriticum infection were completely lacking until now and are reported for the first time in this issue of Virulence by Roy et al29 In human corneal epithelial cells increased expression of Toll-like receptors, IL-6 and IL-β as well as activation of NFκB and MAPK signaling pathways was observed. Obviously, theDownloaded by [University of Sussex Library] at 09:46 16 August 2015 4…”

“…29 In healthy persons, part of this response discovered in corneal epithelia might be responsible also in other tissues to balance the detrimental effects of C.…”

“…[22][23][24][25][26] Furthermore, keratitis is increasingly observed, with C. pseudodiphtheriticum being the major etiological agent of corneal infections by Corynebacterium species. [27][28][29] In contrast to closely related species such as Corynebacterium jeikeium and Corynebacterium resistens, which are often multi-resistant to a wide variety of antibiotics and are consequently difficult to combat, penicillin treatment -alone or in combination with aminoglycosides -is successful in most cases. 15,21,22 Nevertheless, antibiotic susceptibility profiling of C. pseudodiphtheriticum isolates showed that resistance to oxacillin, erythromycin and clindamycin as well as macrolides seems to be common and previous antibiotics treatment of patients even seems to favor colonization by C. pseudodiphtheriticum .…”