A Case of Intracranial Space-occupying Lesion Caused by Infection of AIDS-associated Talaromyces Marnefei.

BACKGROUND: Talaromyces marneffei (T. marneffei) is a heat-dimorphic fungus that commonly causes fatal opportunistic infections in immunocompromised patients, such as those with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. CASE PRESENTATION: In this case report we describe a case of intracranial infection of T. marneffei in a 42-year-old AIDS patient. Contrast enhanced MRI showed the left occipital lobe mass with ring enhancement, MRS showed elevated AAs and Lip waves in the mass. Surgical resection of the occipital lobe confirmed the lesion to be T. marneffei infection and possibly with tuberculosis after a pathological examination. Patients with intracranial ring enhancing space-occupying lesions on MRI should be considered for intracranial T. marneffei infection. Intracranial T. marneffei infection is relatively rarely reported and recently studied. CONCLUSION: The MRI, in this case, suggests that ring enhancement mass and elevated AAs and Lip waves are helpful in the diagnosis of T. marneffei infection.

Longitudinal changes of laboratory measurements after discharged from hospital in 268 COVID-19 pneumonia patients.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Monitoring recovery process of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients released from hospital is crucial for exploring residual effects of COVID-19 and beneficial for clinical care. In this study, a comprehensive analysis was carried out to clarify residual effects of COVID-19 on hospital discharged patients. METHODS: Two hundred sixty-eight cases with laboratory measured data at hospital discharge record and five follow-up visits were retrospectively collected to carry out statistical data analysis comprehensively, which includes multiple statistical methods (e.g., chi-square, T-test and regression) used in this study. RESULTS: Study found that 13 of 21 hematologic parameters in laboratory measured dataset and volume ratio of right lung lesions on CT images highly associated with COVID-19. Moderate patients had statistically significant lower neutrophils than mild and severe patients after hospital discharge, which is probably caused by more efforts on severe patients and slightly neglection of moderate patients. COVID-19 has residual effects on neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) of patients who have hypertension or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). After released from hospital, female showed better performance in T lymphocytes subset cells, especially T helper lymphocyte% (16% higher than male). According to this sex-based differentiation of COVID-19, male should be recommended to take clinical test more frequently to monitor recovery of immune system. Patients over 60 years old showed unstable recovery process of immune cells (e.g., CD45 + lymphocyte) within 75 days after discharge requiring longer clinical care. Additionally, right lung was vulnerable to COVID-19 and required more time to recover than left lung. CONCLUSIONS: Criterion of hospital discharge and strategy of clinical care should be flexible in different cases due to residual effects of COVID-19, which depend on several impact factors. Revealing remaining effects of COVID-19 is an effective way to eliminate disorder of mental health caused by COVID-19 infection.

Imaging and clinical features of patients with 2019 novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2.

BACKGROUND: The pneumonia caused by the 2019 novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2, also called 2019-nCoV) recently break out in Wuhan, China, and was named as COVID-19. With the spread of the disease, similar cases have also been confirmed in other regions of China. We aimed to report the imaging and clinical characteristics of these patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 in Guangzhou, China. METHODS: All patients with laboratory-identified SARS-CoV-2 infection by real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) were collected between January 23, 2020, and February 4, 2020, in a designated hospital (Guangzhou Eighth People's Hospital). This analysis included 90 patients (39 men and 51 women; median age, 50 years (age range, 18-86 years). All the included SARS-CoV-2-infected patients underwent non-contrast enhanced chest computed tomography (CT). We analyzed the clinical characteristics of the patients, as well as the distribution characteristics, pattern, morphology, and accompanying manifestations of lung lesions. In addition, after 1-6 days (mean 3.5 days), follow-up chest CT images were evaluated to assess radiological evolution. FINDINGS: The majority of infected patients had a history of exposure in Wuhan or to infected patients and mostly presented with fever and cough. More than half of the patients presented bilateral, multifocal lung lesions, with peripheral distribution, and 53 (59%) patients had more than two lobes involved. Of all included patients, COVID-19 pneumonia presented with ground glass opacities in 65 (72%), consolidation in 12 (13%), crazy paving pattern in 11 (12%), interlobular thickening in 33 (37%), adjacent pleura thickening in 50 (56%), and linear opacities combined in 55 (61%). Pleural effusion, pericardial effusion, and lymphadenopathy were uncommon findings. In addition, baseline chest CT did not show any abnormalities in 21 patients (23%), but 3 patients presented bilateral ground glass opacities on the second CT after 3-4 days. CONCLUSION: SARS-CoV-2 infection can be confirmed based on the patient's history, clinical manifestations, imaging characteristics, and laboratory tests. Chest CT examination plays an important role in the initial diagnosis of the novel coronavirus pneumonia. Multiple patchy ground glass opacities in bilateral multiple lobular with periphery distribution are typical chest CT imaging features of the COVID-19 pneumonia.

Impact of initial conditions on extant microbial kinetic parameter estimates: application to chlorinated ethene dehalorespiration.

Monod kinetics are the foundation of mathematical models of many environmentally important biological processes, including the dehalorespiration of chlorinated ethene groundwater contaminants. The Monod parameters--qmax, the maximum specific substrate utilization rate, and KS, the half-saturation constant--are typically estimated in batch assays, which are superficially simple to prepare and maintain. However, if initial conditions in batch assays are not chosen carefully, it is unlikely that the estimated parameter values will be meaningful because they do not reflect microbial activity in the environmental system of interest, and/or they are not mathematically identifiable. The estimation of qmax and KS values that are highly correlated undoubtedly contributes significantly to the wide range in reported parameter values and may undermine efforts to use mathematical models to demonstrate the occurrence of natural attenuation or predict the performance of engineered bioremediation approaches. In this study, a series of experimental and theoretical batch kinetic assays were conducted using the tetrachloroethene-respirer Desulfuromonas michiganensis to systematically evaluate the effects of initial batch assay conditions, expressed as the initial substrate (S0)-to-initial biomass concentration (X0) ratio (S0/X0) and the S0/KS ratio on parameter correlation. An iterative approach to obtain meaningful Monod parameter estimates was developed and validated using three different strains and can be broadly applied to a range of other substrates and populations. While the S0/X0 ratio is critical to obtaining kinetic parameter estimates that reflect in situ microbial activity, this study shows that optimization of the S0/KS ratio is key to minimizing Monod parameter correlation.

Dehalorespiration model that incorporates the self-inhibition and biomass inactivation effects of high tetrachloroethene concentrations.

In the vicinity of dense nonaqueous phase liquid (DNAPL) contaminant source zones, aqueous concentrations of tetrachloroethene (PCE) in groundwater may approach saturation levels. In this study, the ability of two PCE-respiring strains (Desulfuromonas michiganensis and Desulfitobacterium strain PCE1) to dechlorinate high concentrations of PCE was experimentally evaluated and depended on the initial biomass concentration. This suggests high PCE concentrations permanently inactivated a fraction of biomass, which, if sufficiently large, prevented dechlorination from proceeding. The toxic effects of PCE were incorporated into a model of dehalorespirer growth by adapting the transformation capacity concept previously applied to describe biomass inactivation by products of cometabolic TCE oxidation. The inactivation growth model was coupled to the Andrews substrate utilization model, which accounts for the self-inhibitory effects of PCE on dechlorination rates, and fit to the experimental data. The importance of incorporating biomass inactivation and self-inhibition effects when modeling reductive dechlorination of high PCE concentrations was demonstrated by comparing the goodness-of-fit of the Andrews biomass inactivation and three alternate models that do capture these factors. The new dehalorespiration model should improve our ability to predict contaminant removal in DNAPL source zones and determine the inoculum size needed to successfully implement bioaugmentation of DNAPL source zones.

Determination of intrinsic monod kinetic parameters for two heterotrophic tetrachloroethene (PCE)-respiring strains and insight into their application.

A complete set of mathematically identifiable and meaningful kinetic parameters estimates is needed to accurately describe the activity of individual populations that dehalorespire tetrachloroethene (PCE) and other chlorinated ethenes. These data may be difficult to extract from the literature because kinetic parameter estimates obtained using mixed cultures may reflect the activity of multiple dehalorespiring populations, while those obtained at low initial substrate-to-biomass ratios (S(0)/X(0)) are influenced by culture history and are generally not relevant to other systems. This study focused on estimation of electron donor and acceptor utilization kinetic parameters for the heterotrophic dehalorespirers Desulfuromonas michiganensis strain BB1 and Desulfitobacterium sp. strain PCE1. Electron acceptor utilization kinetic parameters that are identifiable and independent of culture history, i.e., intrinsic, could be estimated at S(0)/X(0) >or= 10, with both concentrations expressed as chemical oxygen demand (COD). However, the parameter estimates did not accurately describe dechlorination kinetics at lower S(0)/X(0) ratios. The maximum specific substrate utilization rates (q(max)) and half-saturation constants (K(S)) for PCE and trichloroethene (TCE) estimated for the two heterotrophic strains are higher than the values reported for Dehalococcoides cultures. These results suggest that the natural niche of Dehalococcoides strains that can metabolize a range of chlorinated ethenes may be to respire dichloroethene and vinyl chloride produced by Desulfuromonas and Desulfitobacterium strains or other populations that dechlorinate PCE and TCE at faster rates. Few data exist on the electron donor utilization kinetics of heterotrophic dehalorespirers. The results of this study suggest that Desulfuromonas and Desulfitobacterium strains should be able to compete for organic electron donors with other heterotrophic populations in the subsurface.

Effect of inoculating flower stalks and vegetable waste with ligno-cellulolytic microorganisms on the composting process.

A lab-scale composting experiment was carried out using vegetable and flower stalks waste to study the effectiveness of ligno-cellulolytic microorganisms (LCMs) obtained from the previous isolation on composting process, especially on enhancement of biodegradation rate of these organic materials. The addition of LCMs to compost showed promised to be a valuable asset by rendering timely benefits in efficiency, maturity, and quality of the composting. This was evidenced by a significant increase of temperature, O2 consumption and CO2 emission, and population density of LCMs in compost mass compared with that of biotic (addition of culture of horse feces) and abiotic (1% molasses amendment) treatments, as well as control trial. The phytotoxicity assay showed that the substrate became mature after 60 days' composting. The LCMs inoculation enhanced the biodegradation of the composting materials as evidenced by an increasing screening ratio (1.2 cm sieve pore) of 34.5% in the treated trail, compared with that of control, which elucidated that big advantage of adding selected inoculants over other treatment, and screening ratio is a reasonable index to compare the quality of different compost. However, the inoculation seemed to have no significant effect on the moisture content, pH, and the final organic carbon of the composting materials.

[Application of high-efficient cellulose utilization microorganisms in co-composting of vegetable wastes and flower stalk].

An inoculation composing 17 species of cellulose utilization microorganisms was used in co-composting of vegetable wastes and flower stalk, and the efficiency of the inoculation on lignocellulose degradation was studied. The experiments result show that at the beginning of the first stage of composting, inoculating cellulose utilization microorganism in the substrates with 0.5% (V/V) can improve the biomass of the microorganisms into the substrates greatly and make them dominant ones. When the temperature was controlled as 55 degrees C, the biomass of cellulose utilization microorganisms can keep between [symbol: see text] 3.84 x 10(9)-1.80 x 10(10) CFU/g. At the beginning of the second stage, inoculating with 1% (V/V) can improve the temperature during this period effectively. Monitoring of the content of lignocelluloses in the substrate shows that the inoculation of cellulose utilization microorganism can accelerate the degradation of cellulose. The degradation efficiency of cellulose under inoculation condition is 23.64% higher than those without inoculation. This shows that inoculating with cellulose utilization microorganisms in each stage of the composting can greatly decompose the lignocellulose in the substrates, accelerate the co-composting process and improve the quality of composting production.

The chest X-ray image features of patients with severe SRAS: a preliminary study.

OBJECTIVE: To study the chest X-ray image features of patients with severe SARS. METHODS: Chest X-ray image features in 36 patients with severe SARS were retrospectively analyzed. The image characteristics were compared with those of 224 patients with common SARS. RESULTS: The important chest X-ray imaging features of 36 patients with severe SARS included small patch of infiltration (n = 27, 75.0%), large patch of infiltration (n = 22, 61.1%), large area of lung consolidation (n = 10, 27.3%), interstitial lung lesion (n = 26, 72.2%), ground-glass shadow (n = 28, 77.8%), irregular linear opacity (n = 15, 41.7%), diffuse lung lesion (n = 12, 33.3%), with single lung involved (n = 9, 25.0%), and both lungs involved (n = 32, 88.9%). The rates of large patch of infiltration, large area of lung consolidation, ground-glass shadow, diffuse lung lesion and involvement of both lungs in patients with severe SARS were significantly higher than those in patients with common type of SARS (all P < 0.01). Out of the 11 severe SARS patients who died, nine had large area of ground-glass shadow with air bronchogram in both lungs before death. CONCLUSIONS: Large patch of infiltration, large area of consolidation, ground-glass shadow, diffuse lung lesion and involvement of both lungs were the main X-ray image characteristics of patients with severe SARS. Large area of ground-glass shadow with air bronchogram in both lungs indicated a bad prognosis.