Antifungal susceptibility testing practices in mycology laboratories in France, 2018.

A survey of mycology laboratories for antifungal susceptibility testing (AFST) was undertaken in France in 2018, to better understand the difference in practices between the participating centers and to identify the difficulties they may encounter as well as eventual gaps with published standards and guidelines. The survey captured information from 45 mycology laboratories in France on how they perform AFST (number of strains tested, preferred method, technical and quality aspects, interpretation of the MIC values, reading and interpretation difficulties). Results indicated that 86% of respondents used Etest as AFST method, with a combination of one to seven antifungal agents tested. Most of the participating laboratories used similar technical parameters to perform their AFST method and a large majority used, as recommended, internal and external quality assessments. Almost all the participating mycology laboratories (98%) reported difficulties to interpret the MIC values, especially when no clinical breakpoints are available. The survey highlighted that the current AFST practices in France need homogenization, particularly for MIC reading and interpretation.

Antimicrobial activities of three species of family mimosaceae.

The antimicrobial activities of crude methanolic extract of leaves of Acacia nilotica L., Albizia lebbeck L. and Mimosa himalayana Gamble belonging to family mimosaceae were investigated in this research work. Antibacterial activity was studied by agar well diffusion method against one gram-positive Bacillus subtilis and three gram-negative Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumonia. Crude extract of all plants showed best activity against gram-negative bacterial strains while minor inhibition zones were found against gram positive bacterial strains. Antifungal activity of crude plant extract was screened by agar tube dilution method against Aspergillus nigar and Aspergillus flavus. These results showed that these plants extracts have potential against bacterias, while against fungi their activity is not much effective.

The antimicrobial activity of essential oils and extracts of some medicinal plants grown in Ash-shoubak region - South of Jordan.

The inhibitory effects of essential oils as well as chloroformic extracts of Thymus vulgaris, Thymus serpyllum, Salvia officinalis and Pimpinella anisum grown in Ash-shoubak region-south of Jordan and their possible individual phytochemical constituents was screened against pathogenic clinical and standard strains of Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Escherichia coli. The bioassay employed was the agar well diffusion method. The essential oils and chloroformic extracts of T. vulgaris and T. serpyllum were the most effective against the tested strains of bacteria. Clinical and standard strains of S .aureus and P. aeruginosa were uninhibited by S. officinalis essential oils. P. aeruginosa tested strains were also resistant to P. anisum essential oils. For almost all bacterial strains, the highest antibacterial effect of oils was obtained with the highest tested dose (15 µl). Chlorformic extracts of S. officinalis showed small activity against standard and clinical E. coli strains and were not effective to inhibit strains of P. aeruginosa and S. aureus. Chloroformic extracts obtained from P. anisum and applied at 300 µg/cm(2) slightly inhibited E. coli, but moderately inhibited S. aureus. It is shown from the results that the antibacterial effects of the individual components varied depending upon their chemical structure, functional groups and configuration as well as doses used. This study showed the beneficial effects of the essential oils of T. serpyllum and T. vulgaris grown in Ash-shoubak in inhibiting the growth of microbes and the implications this could have in pharmacy and food technology.