Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to J C Ahrens.
Streptococcus pneumoniae is an uncommonly recognized etiology of soft-tissue infections. Our experience suggests that pneumococci can cause serious infections of soft tissues, especially in patients with connective-tissue diseases. Systemic lupus erythematosus was an underlying condition in three of the six patients described in the present report.
Angioinvasive fungi, like Aspergillus, can cause invasive infections in patients immunosuppressed by steroid therapy. Pulmonary infarction, manifested as pleuritic chest pain, frequently results from in situ thrombosis and is characteristic of Aspergillus pneumonia.
We describe and partially characterize the isolation of a germ-tube-positive revertant from Candida albicans B311V6. This revertant has all of the properties of a germ-tube-forming strain of C. albicans except that it appears to have a nutrition defect.
The relationship between culture density or phase of growth at 24.5 degrees C and the ability of Candida albicans to form germ tubes when shifted to 37 degrees C was investigated. Evidence is presented demonstrating germ tube production from liquid synthetic medium cultures at all phases of growth. Previous studies reported that only cells from stationary phase cultures were competent to form germ tubes. Comparisons between exponential and stationary phase cultures indicate more rapid and more synchronous germ tube production from cells growing in the exponential phase.
To identify proteins synthesized during blastospore to germ tube transformation in Candida albicans, membrane and cytoplasmic protein fractions labelled with 14C were analysed by SDS-PAGE and autoradiography. Four cytoplasmic proteins were detected in pulse-labelled lysates prepared from cells forming blastospores and germ tubes at 37 degrees C, but not in pulse-labelled lysates prepared from cells forming blastospores at 24.5 degrees C. Three proteins detectable in 24.5 degrees C lysates were diminished in 37 degrees C lysates.