COMPARISON OF PATHOGENESIS OF P. BERGHEIINFECTION IN MOUSE AND RAT MODELS

@#Background: The cytokine cascade in the immunopathogenesis of malaria infection had been widely studied. However, their specific association with survival and severe infection remained obscure.Methods: Thestudy investigated the cytokine profiles and histopathological features of malaria in the severe infection and survival models by using male ICR mice and male Sprague Dawley rats respectively.Results: The severe model, the infected ICR mice, exhibited a high parasitemia with 100% mortality after peak parasitemia at day 5 post-infection. The survival model, the infected Sprague Dawley rats, showed mild parasitemia with full recovery by day 14 of infection. Both severe and survival models showed similar histopathological severity during peak parasitemia. The severe model produced highly elevated levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines, TNF-α and IL-1α, and low levels of the anti-inflammatory cytokine, IL-4; while the survival model showed low levels of TNF-α and IL-1α with high levels of IL-4.Conclusion: There were differences in the pathogenesis of the severe and survival models of malaria infection. These could be a basis for immunotherapy of malaria in the future

Presence of methicillin resistance and heteroresistance among Coagulase Negative Staphylococci (CoNS) isolates obtained from Health Sciences students at a Public University

This study was carried out to investigate the Coagulase Negative Staphylococci (CoNS) nasal carriage and the presence of methicillin resistant Coagulase Negative Staphylococci (MR-CoNS) among health sciences students at Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universiti Putra Malaysia. A total of 120 isolates of CoNS (62.5%) was isolated from 192 student volunteers. The mecA gene was detected in 15 isolates of CoNS (12.5%). Eight out of the 15 isolates of mecA positive CoNS were resistant to cefoxitin in disc diffusion test whereas the remaining seven isolates of mecA positive CoNS were susceptible to cefoxitin. Analysis of questionnaires showed no significant association between CoNS nasal carriage and the socio-demographic and risk factors except for the genders and history of cold (P < 0.050). Generally, this finding showed a relatively low level of methicillin resistance among CoNS nasal carriage from student volunteers.