Introduction: Group B Streptococcus (GBS), infection and recurrence in newborns and pregnant women can lead to
chronic medical illness resulting in significant morbidity, and mortality. Pathogenesis of GBS may be due to reasons
such as activation of the immune system, followed by the production of inflammatory markers and toxic components
by immune cells including macrophages. Methods: The studies on invasive and colonizing GBS strains inoculated
either with peripheral or brain macrophages, the expression of nitric oxide (NO), cell viability, and CD40 were
also measured by Griess assay, methyl tetrazolium assay (MTT), and flow cytometry, respectively. Furthermore, the
clinical manifestations of the selected patients were also assessed for this study. Results: Outcome of inflammatory
markers studies, after GBS inoculation indicated that, invasive GBS strains induced higher inflammatory markers
in comparison to colonizing GBS strains. Furthermore, patients’ clinical data showed that patients with invasive
GBS infections had severe condition unlike among patients with colonizing GBS strains. The fatality rate in patients
with invasive GBS strain were 30.8% while there was no death among carriers. Conclusion: This study, aimed to
understand the immune response to GBS, and strengthen the knowledge on GBS pathogenesis. It was concluded
that invasive GBS strains not only showed higher expression of inflammatory markers on immune cells but also had
higher pathogenesis effect in comparison to colonizing GBS strains.
Background. Atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP) considerably influences blood pressure regulation through water and sodium homoeostasis. Several of the studies have utilized anonymous genetic polymorphic markers and made inconsequent claims about the ANP relevant disorders. Thus, we screened Insertion/Deletion (ID) and G191A polymorphisms of ANP to discover sequence variations with potential functional significance and to specify the linkage disequilibrium pattern between polymorphisms. The relationships of detected polymorphisms with EH with or without Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) status were tested subsequently. Method. ANP gene polymorphisms (I/D and A191G) were specified utilizing mutagenically separated Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) in 320 subjects including 163 EH case subjects and 157 controls. Result. This case-control study discovered a significant association between I/D polymorphisms of ANP gene in EH patient without T2DM. However, the study determined no association between G191A polymorphisms of ANP in EH with or without T2DM. In addition, sociodemographic factors in the case and healthy subjects exhibited strong differences (P < 0.05). Conclusion. As a risk factor, ANP gene polymorphisms may affect hypertension. Despite the small sample size in this study, it is the first research assessing the ANP gene polymorphisms in both EH and T2DM patients among Malaysian population.
BACKGROUND/PURPOSE: The purpose of this study is to characterize GBS isolates that were collected from three major hospitals in a densely populated area of Klang Valley for their demographics, serotypes, antibiotic susceptibility patterns and genetic background.
METHODS: Sixty GBS isolates from sterile and non-sterile samples in three major hospitals in the Klang Valley area of Malaysia were collected by convenience sampling from 2012 until March 2014. These isolates were studied for their antimicrobial susceptibilities, serotypes and genotypes. Patients' demographic data and clinical information were collected from lab request forms.
RESULTS: Diabetes mellitus was the only underlying condition (7 patients, 23.3%); the remaining samples were from patients who were immunocompromised due to medications. Fifty-nine (98%) isolates were sensitive to penicillin, while 78.3% and 88.3% of the isolates were sensitive to erythromycin and clindamycin, respectively. Serotype Ia was the most common serotype (n=27, 45%), followed by serotype III (n=10, 16.7%), V (n=9, 15%), VI (n=8, 13.3%), VIII (n=2, 3.3%) and VII (n=1, 1.7%). Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD) typing showed a diverse genetic pedigree for all isolates, including four major groups that clustered according to geographical location.
CONCLUSION: This preliminary study determines the prevalence of limited common serotypes and antimicrobial resistance in distinct GBS isolates. Nonetheless, the RAPD clustering pattern suggests a close genetic lineage of the GBS isolates based on their isolation sites and location of hospitals.