Factors Influencing Staff's Attitude Toward Electroconvulsive Therapy: A Comparison of New Versus Experienced Electroconvulsive Therapy Clinics.

OBJECTIVES: Despite being a highly effective treatment, electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is still stigmatized even among professionals. The aim of this study was to identify factors associated with a positive attitude toward ECT among health care workers. METHODS: We investigated staff's attitude and their self-assessment of knowledge while introducing ECT in 3 German psychiatric clinics. Furthermore, we compared this data to that of a clinic where ECT has been applied with a long tradition. An anonymous questionnaire was answered by n = 182 employees in the ECT-introducing clinics (novices) and n = 68 employees in the clinic with a long history of ECT (experts). RESULTS: Irrespective of the clinical history, the majority of participants approved the application of ECT in their clinic. Factors associated with a positive attitude were (a) profession (physicians presented a more positive mindset about ECT than nursing staff), (b) subjective feeling of being adequately informed, and (c) having had contact to patients undergoing ECT. Interestingly, the general attitude toward ECT did not differ between subjects who reported to have seen an ECT and those who had not. CONCLUSIONS: When introducing ECT as a new treatment into a clinic, formal information should be adapted to the needs of each profession with a special emphasis on nurses. To further increase acceptance, contact to ECT-experienced patients (professionals taught by patients) might result in a more positive attitude toward ECT than participation in an ECT treatment itself.

A Recurrent Silent Mutation Implicates fecA in Ethanol Tolerance by Escherichia coli.

BACKGROUND: An issue associated with efficient bioethanol production is the fact that the desired product is toxic to the biocatalyst. Among other effects, ethanol has previously been found to influence the membrane of E. coli in a dose-dependent manner and induce changes in the lipid composition of the plasma membrane. We describe here the characterization of a collection of ethanol-tolerant strains derived from the ethanologenic Escherichia coli strain FBR5. RESULTS: Membrane permeability assays indicate that many of the strains in the collection have alterations in membrane permeability and/or responsiveness of the membrane to environmental changes such as temperature shifts or ethanol exposure. However, analysis of the strains by gas chromatography and mass spectrometry revealed no qualitative changes in the acyl chain composition of membrane lipids in response to ethanol or temperature. To determine whether these strains contain any mutations that might contribute to ethanol tolerance or changes in membrane permeability, we sequenced the entire genome of each strain. Unexpectedly, none of the strains displayed mutations in genes known to control membrane lipid synthesis, and a few strains carried no mutations at all. Interestingly, we found that four independently-isolated strains acquired an identical C → A (V244 V) silent mutation in the ferric citrate transporter gene fecA. Further, we demonstrated that either a deletion of fecA or over-expression of fecA can confer increased ethanol survival, suggesting that any misregulation of fecA expression affects the cellular response to ethanol. CONCLUSIONS: The fact that no mutations were observed in several ethanol-tolerant strains suggested that epigenetic mechanisms play a role in E. coli ethanol tolerance and membrane permeability. Our data also represent the first direct phenotypic evidence that the fecA gene plays a role in ethanol tolerance. We propose that the recurring silent mutation may exert an effect on phenotype by altering RNA-mediated regulation of fecA expression.

Effectiveness of an applied microbiology course specifically designed for chemical engineering majors.

In recent years, the disciplines of microbiology and chemical engineering have developed an increasing convergence. To meet the needs of their future employers, today's chemical engineering students must receive some background in microbiology. This report describes the development and content of "Biological Systems and Applications," a novel course specifically designed to provide basic biology and applied microbiology knowledge, skills, and experience to sophomore chemical engineering majors. Data collected from entrance and exit surveys of the students demonstrated that the course is successful. The importance of the "project-base" learning technique and of interdisciplinary faculty-student and faculty-faculty collaborations are proposed as elements essential to the success of this particular course.

Lead precipitation by Vibrio harveyi: evidence for novel quorum-sensing interactions.

Three pleiotropic, quorum sensing-defective Vibrio harveyi mutants were observed to precipitate soluble Pb2+ as an insoluble compound. The compound was purified and subjected to X-ray diffraction and elemental analyses. These assays identified the precipitated compound as Pb9(PO4)6, an unusual and complex lead phosphate salt that is produced synthetically at temperatures of ca. 200 degrees C. Regulation of the precipitation phenotype was also examined. Introduction of a luxO::kan allele into one of the mutants abolished lead precipitation, indicating that the well-characterized autoinducer 1 (AI1)-AI2 quorum-sensing system can block lead precipitation in dense cell populations. Interestingly, the V. harveyi D1 mutant, a strain defective for secretion of both AI1 and AI2, was shown to be an effective trans inhibitor of lead precipitation. This suggests that a previously undescribed V. harveyi autoinducer, referred to as AI3, can also negatively regulate lead precipitation. Experiments with heterologous bacterial populations demonstrated that many different species are capable of trans regulating the V. harveyi lead precipitation phenotype. Moreover, one of the V. harveyi mutants in this study exhibited little or no response to intercellular signals from other V. harveyi inocula but was quite responsive to some of the heterologous bacteria. Based on these observations, we propose that V. harveyi carries at least one quorum sensor that is specifically dedicated to receiving cross-species communication.