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Biomedical subjects

M J Surgalla

Publications and source records attributed to M J Surgalla.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1985

In vitro antibiotic activity of 11 beta-lactam antibiotics in a cancer center.

Two-thousand, five-hundred and twenty-four bacterial isolates were tested against 11 new beta-lactam antibiotics in a prospective study conducted in a cancer center. E. coli, P. aeruginosa, and K. pneumoniae were the most common gram-negative organisms isolated, while S. aureus and Enterococcus were the most common organisms among the gram-positive. The new cephalosporins were more active than the semisynthetic penicillins against E. coli, P. aeruginosa, and K. pneumoniae (p less than 0.001). Mezlocillin had better activity than the other semisynthetic penicillins against most of the gram-negative organisms as well as the enterococci. As a result, mezlocillin was preferred as a beta-lactam agent to be employed with an aminoglycoside as empiric antibiotics for febrile patients with neoplasia.

Anti-Bacterial Agents↗
PubMed1983

Repression of the virulence of Yersinia pestis by an F' plasmid.

An F-lac plasmid from Escherichia coli was transferred to virulent Yersinia pestis, resulting in the repression of virulence. The Y. pestis F-lac clones retained all of the known virulence traits but were avirulent and calcium independent. Every lac segregant derived from the F-lac clones was fully virulent and calcium dependent.

Calcium↗
PubMed1980

Immunoglobulin G and immunoglobulin M antibody responses of patients with malignancies to the O antigens of bacteria causing bacteremia.

Malignancy may be associated with impairment of the immune system. In children with acute leukemia, an impaired immunoglobulin M (IgM) antibody response to poliovirus was documented previously. It was of interest, therefore, to determine the immunoclass of antibodies produced against the O antigens of bacteria causing bacteremia in patients with leukemia and other malignancies. For control purposes, parallel studies were carried out in patients without maligancies but with infections caused by gram-negative bacteria. The patients with malignancies were adults, and those without malignancies were children. The serum specimens were selected from patients mounting an antibody response. IgG and IgM antibodies were identified by mercaptoethanol reduction and chromatography. Antibody titers against the O antigens of enteric bacteria were determined by the hemagglutination procedure. Antibodies of both IgM and IgG immunoclasses were produced by all but 1 of 16 patients with leukemia and by all but 1 of 12 subjects with other malignancies. Thus, a specific IgM immune deficiency in adult patients with leukemia or other malignancies complicated by bacteremia was not present; however, the magnitude of the antibody response of the patient with leukemia was less than that of the subjets with other maligancies, with the median antibody titers of the former being 320 and those of the latter being 2,560.

Adult↗
PubMed1979

The antibody response to enterobacteriaceae and pseudomonas of patients with malignancies complicated by bacteremia.

The antibody response to the O antigens of the patients' own gram-negative bacteria causing bloodstream infection in patients with malignancies was investigated using the hemagglutination test. Of the 87 patients, 42 (48%) produced specific antibodies in significant titers. Differences were noted between the various microorganisms. Of 44 patients with E. coli bacteremia 26 (59%) had an antibody response, whereas only 5 (33%) out of 15 subjects with Pseudomonas aeruginosa infection did. The antibody response of patients with solid tumors (61%) was significantly better than that of subjects with RES malignancies (30%). Documentation of the humoral immune response of patients to isolates from blood cultures excludes laboratory contamination and supports the relevance of the isolated microorganisms. Thus, for diagnostic purposes documentation of the immunoglobulin response supplements bacteriologic findings.

Antibody Formation↗
PubMed1977

Antibody response to Serratia marcescens isolated from patients with malignant diseases.

Sixty-four patients with malignant diseases from whom Serratia marcescens was isolated from various sources were studied regarding their antibody responses to somatic O antigens of this microorganism. Antibodies were titrated by the passive hemagglutination test. An antibody response was considered present when either a fourfold or greater rise in antibody titers between two consecutive serum specimens was demonstrated, or when elevated titers (greater than or equal to 40 for serogroup O14 and greater than or equal to 160 for all others) were present in the first available specimen. Overall, 31% of subjects mounted an immune response, but there were differences depending upon the infection site. Seventy-one percent of patients with S. marcescens bacteremia responded immunologically; whereas the percentage for patients with Serratia present in the respiratory tract was only 22%, in the urinary tract, 31%, and in wounds, 26%. Documentation of an immune response to the patient's own infecting strain of Serratia aids in the differentiation between infection and contamination and possibly also between clinical disease and colonization. In addition, immunoglobulin samples collected in different decades were examined to determine whether the background level of antibodies to S. marcescens had changed in the general population over the years. No difference in antibody titers to 13 O antigens was observed in immunoglobulin preparations from 1951, 1962, 1971, and 1975.

Adult↗
PubMed1975

Antibody response of patients with malignancies to bacteremia with gram-negative bacteria.

Antibody response, determined by means of the indirect bacterial hemagglutination tests, was studied in 58 consecutive patients with various malignancies whose blood culture yielded growth of Enterobacteriaceae or Pseudomonas and from whom serum specimens were obtained. Of these patients 59% had a significant antibody response. The invading microorganisms were Escherichia coli in 33 and Klebsiella in 19 subjects, an antibody response being documented with essentially equal frequency (60 and 57% of the subjects, respectively). Two patients had positive blood cultures for both E. coli and Klebsiella, one of whom had a significant response to one isolate only. A specific antibody resonse was documented in 67% of the subjects from whom blood for antibody titration was obtained at least 5 days after the blood culture, but from only 21% of patients whose serum was procured during the first 5 days after the blood culture. Similarly, such an antibody response was identified in 73% of subjects with two consecutive serum specimens, but in only 28% of the patients with a single serum specimen for antibody titration. Documentation of the immune response may be of diagnostic aid in differentiating between infection and contamination even in patients with underlying malignancy and under potentially immunosuppressive therapy.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1971

Infectivity and virulence of nonpesticinogenic Pasteurella pestis.

Nonpesticinogenic Pasteurella pestis, which is also negative for coagulase and fibrinolytic activities and therefore referred to as (PI-C-F)(-), was investigated to determine whether greatly reduced and erratic lethal responses observed in mice and guinea pigs might be due to inability of the inoculum to establish infection and multiply in survivors. Immunity of survivors was regarded as an indication of previous infection, and, in the case of guinea pigs infected intradermally, appearance of a local lesion and bubo were also noted. Evidence of infection was obtained in most mice and guinea pigs surviving injection of (PI-C-F)(-) strains G-32 and Dodson, suggesting that the virulence determinant (PI-C-F) is related to lethality rather than to infectivity.

Animals↗
PubMed1970

Pesticinogeny: a characteristic useful for presumptive identification and isolation of Pasteurella pestis.

Current methods of identifying Pasteurella pestis rely heavily on tests specific for detecting fraction I, the envelope antigen. Pesticin I, a bacteriocin inhibitory for P. pseudotuberculosis, has been demonstrated in nearly all tested strains isolated from human infections. The results of using this characteristic as an identifying trait for P. pestis were compared with results reported for detecting fraction I by fluorescent-antibody and antiserum-agar techniques. Data indicate that, although certain atypical strains of P. pestis fail to react in one system or the other, a combination of these tests provides positive identification in all cases. Detection of P. pestis in contaminated materials is greatly facilitated, and the simplicity of this test makes it a valuable tool in the study of plague infections and an important adjunct to methods currently in use. The use of the pesticin I assay is not intended to replace other accepted techniques, but rather to supplement them and increase the effectiveness of plague investigation.

Agar↗
PubMed1970

Isolation and Biological Characterization of Pasteurella pestis Endotoxin.

Endotoxin containing 2.1% nitrogen, 1.6% phosphorus, 22.5% neutral hexose, 15% hexosamine, 25% esterified and amide-linked fatty acids, and 1.4% protein was isolated from Pasteurella pestis strain Alexander by slight modification of a method adapted by Tauber and Russell. The lipopolysaccharide exhibited classical endotoxic biological properties including: (i) toxicity in mice, guinea pigs, and rabbits; (ii) antigenicity in rabbits; (iii) capacity to evoke a biphasic pyrogenic response in rabbits; (iv) capacity to induce tolerance in mice to the lethal effect of endotoxin; (v) capacity to stimulate rapidly acquired resistance in mice to bacterial infection, and (vi) the capacity to produce the localized and generalized Shwartzman phenomena in rabbits. Findings obtained during the study concerning the occurrence, isolation, toxicity, and other biological properties of P. pestis endotoxin provide new evidence that endotoxin could contribute to death in plague.

Journal Article↗
PubMed1969

Plague bacillus: survival within host phagocytes.

Pasteurella pestis within nelutrophiles and macrophages removed from the peritoneal cavity of guinea pigs dutring experimental plague were shown to be viable by direct microscopic observation of the infected phagocytes incubating in sutitable bacteriologic media. The time-honored hypothesis that the major determinanit of the virulence of the plague bacillius is its ability to resist ingestion by phagocytes mutst be reevaluated.

Animals↗
PubMed1969

Congo red-agar plating medium for detecting pigmentation in Pasteurella pestis.

Ability to detect pigmented and nonpigmented Pasteurella pestis is essential in plague research, and is currently dependent on use of the synthetic hemin-agar of Jackson and Burrows. We have devised a new differential medium for this purpose, containing Congo red dye and common, commercially available laboratory media. The ease and simplicity of preparation make the Congo red-agar a practical routine laboratory tool in plague research. These findings, possibly indicating a common binding site for hematin and Congo red, should be useful in efforts to determine the chemical nature of a bacterial component associated with high virulence in P. pestis.

Agar↗
PubMed1968

Specific identification of fraction I-positive Pasteurella pestis colonies on antiserum-agar plates.

A method is described for the use of antiplague serum in Blood Agar Base plating media to detect fraction I-positive Pasteurella pestis. The antiserum was produced conveniently and in large volume in rabbits by use of Cutter plague vaccine combined with Freund's complete adjuvant. P. pestis colonies were specifically identified within 48 hr after plating by the presence of a precipitin ring surrounding each colony. The basis of the test was shown to be a precipitin reaction between fraction I antigen released from P. pestis colonies after chloroform vapor treatment and fraction I antibody present in the antiserum-agar medium.

Agar↗
PubMed1968

Use of the antiserum-agar plate technique for specific identification and isolation of Pasteurella pestis.

Pasteurella pestis colonies were specifically identified on antiserum-agar plates used for primary culture of tissues from experimentally infected guinea pigs. Both selective and nonselective antiserum-agar plates were used to identify P. pestis from guinea pigs kept at 22 C for periods up to 4 days after death from plague. Colonies identified as P. pestis on selective and nonselective antiserum-agar plates, by the appearance of precipitin rings following brief chloroform vapor treatment, remained viable and were subsequently purified on nonselective antiserum-agar plates. Isolates obtained in this manner were uniformly lethal when injected into mice and guinea pigs, and conformed to standard laboratory criteria for P. pestis. P. pestis was identified on selective antiserum-agar plates from the spleens of all guinea pigs killed by the isolates, and from a large majority of the mice. The practical value and confirmative nature of the method were demonstrated.

Animals↗
PubMed1968

Morphology, physiology, and serology of a Pasteurella species pathogenic for white perch. (Roccus americanus).

The Pasteurella species implicated as the etiologic agent of a massive white perch mortality in the Chesapeake Bay and first described by S. F. Snieszko et al. has been characterized further in our laboratory. The general morphology and physiology of this organism is similar to that of the pasteurellae and several known fish pathogens. There are enough dissimilarities, however, to rule out its identification with any established species. The organism is obligately halophilic and grows in a temperature range between 17 and 31 C on ordinary media containing 1% NaCl. It has a relatively narrow range of pH, temperature, and salinity tolerance, and a very short survival time in spent media or brackish water, in contrast to Pasteurella pestis and P. pseudotuberculosis. Serological tests also indicate that this organism is distinct from other species which it resembles. On the basis of classic morphological and physiological criteria, this organism fits best in the genus Pasteurella; the species name piscicida (L. noun piscis, a fish; L.v.L.adj. suffix-cidus, to kill; M.L. noun piscicida, fish killer) is proposed.

Animals↗