Plasmid-Mediated AmpC: Prevalence in Community-Acquired Isolates in Amsterdam,the Netherlands,and Risk Factors for Carriage

Objectives

The objective of this study was to determine the prevalence of pAmpC beta-lactamases in community-acquired Gram negative bacteria in the Netherlands, and to identify possible risk factors for carriage of these strains.

Methods

Fecal samples were obtained from community-dwelling volunteers. Participants also returned a questionnaire for analysis of risk factors. Screening for pAmpC was performed with selective enrichment broth and a selective screening agar. Confirmation of AmpC-production was performed with two double disc combination tests: cefotaxime and ceftazidime with either boronic acid or cloxacillin as inhibitor. Multiplex PCR was used as gold standard for detection of pAmpC. 16S rRNA PCR and AFLP were performed as required, plasmids were identified by PCR-based replicon typing. Questionnaire results were analyzed with SPSS, version 20.0.

Results

Fecal samples were obtained from 550 volunteers; mean age 51 years (range: 18–91), 61% were females. pAmpC was present in seven E. coli isolates (7/550, 1.3%, 0.6–2.7 95% CI): six CMY-2-like pAmpC and one DHA. ESBL-encoding genes were found in 52/550 (9.5%, 7.3–12.2 95% CI) isolates; these were predominantly blaCTX-M genes. Two isolates had both ESBL and pAmpC. Admission to a hospital in the previous year was the only risk factor we identified.

Conclusions

Our data indicate that the prevalence of pAmpC in the community seems still low. However, since pAmpC-producing isolates were not identified as ESBL producers by routine algorithms, there is consistent risk that further increase of their prevalence might go undetected.     

Pythium polare, a new heterothallic oomycete causing brown discolouration of Sanionia uncinata in the Arctic and Antarctic

Pythium polare sp. nov. is a new heterothallic oomycete species isolated from fresh water and moss from various locations in both the Arctic and Antarctic. This water mould is able to infect stems and leaves of Sanionia moss (Sanionia uncinata). Pythium polare causes brown discolouration in in vitro inoculation tests at 5 °C after 5 weeks of inoculation. It is characterized by globose sporangia with various lengths of discharge tubes releasing zoospores and aplerotic oospores with usually one to five antheridia. The sexual structures are only produced in a dual culture of antheridial and oogonial isolates. Phylogenetic analysis, based on ITS sequencing, places all isolated strains of P. polare in a unique new clade, hence it is considered a novel species. Pythium canariense and Pythium violae are the most closely related species of P. polare based both on morphology and the phylogenetic analysis.     

Dealing with Feelings: Characterization of Trait Alexithymia on Emotion Regulation Strategies and Cognitive-Emotional Processing

Background

Alexithymia, or “no words for feelings”, is a personality trait which is associated with difficulties in emotion recognition and regulation. It is unknown whether this deficit is due primarily to regulation, perception, or mentalizing of emotions. In order to shed light on the core deficit, we tested our subjects on a wide range of emotional tasks. We expected the high alexithymics to underperform on all tasks.

Method

Two groups of healthy individuals, high and low scoring on the cognitive component of the Bermond-Vorst Alexithymia Questionnaire, completed questionnaires of emotion regulation and performed several emotion processing tasks including a micro expression recognition task, recognition of emotional prosody and semantics in spoken sentences, an emotional and identity learning task and a conflicting beliefs and emotions task (emotional mentalizing).

Results

The two groups differed on the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire, Berkeley Expressivity Questionnaire and Empathy Quotient. Specifically, the Emotion Regulation Quotient showed that alexithymic individuals used more suppressive and less reappraisal strategies. On the behavioral tasks, as expected, alexithymics performed worse on recognition of micro expressions and emotional mentalizing. Surprisingly, groups did not differ on tasks of emotional semantics and prosody and associative emotional-learning.

Conclusion

Individuals scoring high on the cognitive component of alexithymia are more prone to suppressive emotion regulation strategies rather than reappraisal strategies. Regarding emotional information processing, alexithymia is associated with reduced performance on measures of early processing as well as higher order mentalizing. However, difficulties in the processing of emotional language were not a core deficit in our alexithymic group.     

Sex differences in neural activation to facial expressions denoting contempt and disgust

The facial expression of contempt has been regarded to communicate feelings of moral superiority. Contempt is an emotion that is closely related to disgust, but in contrast to disgust, contempt is inherently interpersonal and hierarchical. The aim of this study was twofold. First, to investigate the hypothesis of preferential amygdala responses to contempt expressions versus disgust. Second, to investigate whether, at a neural level, men would respond stronger to biological signals of interpersonal superiority (e.g., contempt) than women. We performed an experiment using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), in which participants watched facial expressions of contempt and disgust in addition to neutral expressions. The faces were presented as distractors in an oddball task in which participants had to react to one target face. Facial expressions of contempt and disgust activated a network of brain regions, including prefrontal areas (superior, middle and medial prefrontal gyrus), anterior cingulate, insula, amygdala, parietal cortex, fusiform gyrus, occipital cortex, putamen and thalamus. Contemptuous faces did not elicit stronger amygdala activation than did disgusted expressions. To limit the number of statistical comparisons, we confined our analyses of sex differences to the frontal and temporal lobes. Men displayed stronger brain activation than women to facial expressions of contempt in the medial frontal gyrus, inferior frontal gyrus, and superior temporal gyrus. Conversely, women showed stronger neural responses than men to facial expressions of disgust. In addition, the effect of stimulus sex differed for men versus women. Specifically, women showed stronger responses to male contemptuous faces (as compared to female expressions), in the insula and middle frontal gyrus. Contempt has been conceptualized as signaling perceived moral violations of social hierarchy, whereas disgust would signal violations of physical purity. Thus, our results suggest a neural basis for sex differences in moral sensitivity regarding hierarchy on the one hand and physical purity on the other.     

Genome-wide epigenetic alterations in cloned bovine fetuses

To gain a better understanding of global methylation differences associated with development of nuclear transfer (NT)-generated cattle, we analyzed the genome-wide methylation status of spontaneously aborted cloned fetuses, cloned fetuses, and adult clones that were derived from transgenic and nontransgenic cumulus, genital ridge, and body cell lines. Cloned fetuses were recovered from ongoing normal pregnancies and were morphologically normal. Fetuses generated by artificial insemination (AI) were used as controls. In vitro fertilization (IVF) fetuses were compared with AI controls to assess effects of in vitro culture on the 5-methylcytosine content of fetal genomes. All of the fetuses were female. Skin biopsies were obtained from cloned and AI-generated adult cows. All of the adult clones were phenotypically normal and lactating and had no history of health or reproductive disorders. Genome-wide cytosine methylation levels were monitored by reverse-phase HPLC, and results indicated reduced levels of methylated cytosine in NT-generated fetuses. In contrast, no differences were observed between adult, lactating clones and similarly aged lactating cows produced by AI. These data imply that survivability of cloned cattle may be closely related to the global DNA methylation status. This is the first report to indicate that global methylation losses may contribute to the developmental failure of cloned bovine fetuses.     

Interaction between seasonal density-dependence structures and length of the seasons explain the geographical structure of the dynamics of voles in Hokkaido: an example of seasonal forcing

The grey-sided vole (Clethrionomys rufocanus) is distributed over the entire island of Hokkaido, Japan, across which it exhibits multi-annual density cycles in only parts of the island (the north-eastern part); in the remaining part of the island, only seasonal density changes occur. Using annual sampling of 189 grey-sided vole populations, we deduced the geographical structure in their second-order density dependence. Building upon our earlier suggestion, we deduce the seasonal density-dependent structure for these populations. Strong direct and delayed density dependence is found to occur during winter, whereas no density dependence is seen during the summer period. The direct density dependence during winter may be seen as a result of food being limited during that season: the delayed density dependence during the winter is consistent with vole-specialized predators (e.g. the least weasel) responding to vole densities so as to have a negative effect on the net growth rate of voles in the following year. We conclude that the observed geographical structure of the population dynamics may be properly seen as a result of the length of the summer in interaction with the differential seasonal density-dependent structure. Altogether, this indicates that the geographical pattern in multi-annual density dynamics in the grey-sided vole may be a result of seasonal forcing.