Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: EC:3.2.1.31 (beta-glucuronidase)
 7,680 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Abnormalities in chemotactic and bactericidal activity have been identified in patients suffering from burn injury, trauma, and infection. Such abnormalities may lead to bacteremia or nosocomial infection. The mechanism for these abnormalities is unclear. We studied the role of chemotactic deactivation by complement component C5a in 47 patients with intra-abdominal infection and with disordered neutrophil function. Plasma C5a levels in such patients were elevated (102.1 +/- 8.3 versus 52.6 +/- 3.4 ng/ml for control subjects, P less than 0.01). There was a linear relationship between C5a and chemotaxis (r = 0.56, P less than 0.01). Examination of patients' neutrophils showed changes consistent with nonspecific deactivation. There were parallel losses of chemotaxis to N-formyl methionyl-leucyl-phenylalanine (FMLP) and activated serum (C5a) (r = 0.74, P less than 0.001), chemotaxis and intracellular beta-glucuronidase (r = 0.82, P less than 0.001), and C5a and FMLP chemotaxis and (r = 0.56, P less than 0.01). Receptor assays revealed specific loss of C5a binding but intact FMLP binding. Exposure of normal neutrophils to plasma from patients with depressed chemotaxis caused similar loss of C5a receptors and loss of FMLP and activated serum-induced chemotaxis at high plasma concentrations and selective loss of activated serum response at lower concentrations. These data support the concept that a major factor leading to neutrophil dysfunction during intra-abdominal infection is nonspecific chemotactic deactivation of neutrophils after in vivo exposure to high levels of chemoattractants such as C5a.
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PMID:Neutrophil dysfunction in sepsis. II. Evidence for the role of complement activation products in cellular deactivation. 725 44

Critically ill patients often develop symptoms of sepsis and therefore require microbiological tests for bacteremia that use conventional blood culture (BC) techniques. However, since these patients frequently receive early empirical antibiotic therapy before diagnostic procedures are completed, examination by BC can return false-negative results. We therefore hypothesized that PCR could improve the rate of detection of microbial pathogens over that of BC. To test this hypothesis, male Wistar rats were challenged intravenously with 10(6) CFU of Escherichia coli. Blood was then taken at several time points for detection of E. coli by BC and by PCR with E. coli-specific primers derived from the uidA gene, encoding beta-glucuronidase. In further experiments, cefotaxime (100 or 50 mg/kg of body weight) was administered intravenously to rats 10 min after E. coli challenge. Without this chemotherapy, the E. coli detection rate decreased at 15 min and at 210 min after challenge from 100% to 62% of the animals with PCR and from 100% to 54% of the animals with BC (P, >0.05). Chemotherapy decreased the E. coli detection rate at 25 min and at 55 min after challenge from 100% to 50% with PCR and from 100% to 0% with BC (P, <0.05). Thus, at clinically relevant serum antibiotic levels, PCR affords a significantly higher detection rate than BC in this rat model. The results suggest that PCR could be a useful adjunct tool supplementing conventional BC techniques in diagnosing bacteremia.
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PMID:PCR and blood culture for detection of Escherichia coli bacteremia in rats. 1118 77

One hundred one isolates of nutritionally variant streptococci from 97 patients were phenotypically characterized and compared with the type strains of Granulicatella adiacens (formerly Abiotrophia adiacens) (ATCC 49175(T)) Abiotrophia defectiva (ATCC 49176(T)), and Granulicatella elegans (formerly Abiotrophia elegans) (DSM 11693(T)). Of the isolates, 55 and 43 resembled G. adiacens and A. defectiva, respectively, while 3 strains resembled G. elegans. Phenotypic characteristics useful in differentiating between species within the genera Granulicatella and Abiotrophia (G. adiacens, G. elegans, Granulicatella balaenopterae, and A. defectiva) were production of alpha- and beta-galactosidase; production of beta-glucuronidase; hippurate hydrolysis; arginine dihydrolase activity; and acid production from trehalose, sucrose, pullulan, and tagatose. From the reports submitted with the specimens, the clinical diagnosis was endocarditis in 58% of patients and septicemia or bacteremia in 26% of patients.
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PMID:Granulicatella and Abiotrophia species from human clinical specimens. 1157 66