scholarly journals Molecular Evolution Perspectives on Intraspecific Lateral DNA Transfer of Topoisomerase and Gyrase Loci in Streptococcus pneumoniae, with Implications for Fluoroquinolone Resistance Development and Spread

2005 ◽  
Vol 49 (10) ◽  
pp. 4315-4326 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J. Stanhope ◽  
Stacey L. Walsh ◽  
Julie A. Becker ◽  
Michael J. Italia ◽  
Karen A. Ingraham ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Streptococcus Pneumoniae ◽  
Dna Transfer ◽  
Lateral Transfer ◽  
Respiratory Pathogen ◽  
Fluoroquinolone Resistance ◽  
Data Set ◽  
History Of ◽  
Important Means ◽  
Viridans Group Streptococci

ABSTRACT Fluoroquinolones are an important class of antibiotics for the treatment of infections arising from the gram-positive respiratory pathogen Streptococcus pneumoniae. Although there is evidence supporting interspecific lateral DNA transfer of fluoroquinolone target loci, no studies have specifically been designed to assess the role of intraspecific lateral transfer of these genes in the spread of fluoroquinolone resistance. This study involves a comparative evolutionary perspective, in which the evolutionary history of a diverse set of S. pneumoniae clinical isolates is reconstructed from an expanded multilocus sequence typing data set, with putative recombinants excluded. This control history is then assessed against networks of each of the four fluoroquinolone target loci from the same isolates. The results indicate that although the majority of fluoroquinolone target loci from this set of 60 isolates are consistent with a clonal dissemination hypothesis, 3 to 10% of the sequences are consistent with an intraspecific lateral transfer hypothesis. Also evident were examples of interspecific transfer, with two isolates possessing a parE-parC gene region arising from viridans group streptococci. The Spain 23F-1 clone is the most dominant fluoroquinolone-nonsusceptible clone in this set of isolates, and the analysis suggests that its members act as frequent donors of fluoroquinolone-nonsusceptible loci. Although the majority of fluoroquinolone target gene sequences in this set of isolates can be explained on the basis of clonal dissemination, a significant number are more parsimoniously explained by intraspecific lateral DNA transfer, and in situations of high S. pneumoniae population density, such events could be an important means of resistance spread.

Writing and Ritual in Deuteronomy 28

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Quick
Keyword(s):  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Comparative Method ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
History Of ◽  
Important Means ◽  
Written Word ◽  
Ritual Process ◽  
Different Cultures ◽  
Ritual Context

This chapter argue that ritual behaviours might be just as good a source as literary texts for the diffusion of traditional cursing and treaty material across different cultures in the ancient Near East. In particular, the role of ad hoc oral Targum in the ritual process could have been an important means by which traditions were shared between different language communities. Recognition of the ritual context of this material also provides insights for the comparative method, the dating and authorship of Deuteronomy 28, and the subversive impetus thought to have stood behind its composition. Ultimately, the function of the written word in a largely oral world is shown to be fundamental to understanding the composition, function and the early history of the curses in the book of Deuteronomy.

scholarly journals Personal networking function of the Internet

Sociologija ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dalibor Petrovic
Keyword(s):  
Social Studies ◽  
Social Role ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Interpersonal Interaction ◽  
The Internet ◽  
History Of ◽  
Important Means ◽  
New Form ◽  
Networked Individualism

The aim of the paper is to understand the role of Internet in creating new forms of sociability in the modern society. In the first part the history of social studies of Internet is reviewed, and the conclusion put forward that the anti-social role of the Internet cannot be proved. In the theoretical part of the paper the author presents his idea of two basic roles of Internet as interpersonal interaction tool: transmissional and procreative. These two Internet functions are very important means for reproducing a new form of sociability known as networked individualism.

Prophecy, eclipses and whole-sale markets: A case study on why data driven economic history requires history of economics, a philosopher’s reflection

2009 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Schliesser
Keyword(s):  
Economic History ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Data Set ◽  
History Of Economics ◽  
Successful Attempt ◽  
Economic Experience ◽  
History Of ◽  
Important Evidence

AbstractIn this essay, I use a general argument about the evidential role of data in ongoing inquiry to show that it is fruitful for economic historians and historians of economics to collaborate more frequently. The shared aim of this collaboration should be to learn from past economic experience in order to improve the cutting edge of economic theory. Along the way, I attack a too rigorous distinction between the history of economics and economic history. By drawing on the history of physics, I argue that the history of a discipline can be a source of important evidence in ongoing inquiry. My argument relies on the claim that it is a constitutive element of science that evidence is never discarded forever and is thus historical in nature. In the final section, I offer a case study by explaining a research proposal that turns on a long-running data-set Babylonian whole-sale prices of six commodities noted in pre-Hellenistic and Hellenistic times. To motivate my reading of this data-set, I critically discuss Aristotle′s successful attempt to distinguish between astrology and political economy.

scholarly journals Viridans Group Streptococci Are Donors in Horizontal Transfer of Topoisomerase IV Genes to Streptococcus pneumoniae

2003 ◽  
Vol 47 (7) ◽  
pp. 2072-2081 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luz Balsalobre ◽  
María José Ferrándiz ◽  
Josefina Liñares ◽  
Fe Tubau ◽  
Adela G. de la Campa
Keyword(s):  
Streptococcus Pneumoniae ◽  
Nucleotide Sequence ◽  
Horizontal Transfer ◽  
Southern Blot Analysis ◽  
Fluoroquinolone Resistance ◽  
Topoisomerase Iv ◽  
Streptococcus Mitis ◽  
Streptococcus Oralis ◽  
Viridans Group Streptococci ◽  
Interspecific Recombination

ABSTRACT A total of 46 ciprofloxacin-resistant (Cipr) Streptococcus pneumoniae strains were isolated from 1991 to 2001 at the Hospital of Bellvitge. Five of these strains showed unexpectedly high rates of nucleotide variations in the quinolone resistance-determining regions (QRDRs) of their parC, parE, and gyrA genes. The nucleotide sequence of the full-length parC, parE, and gyrA genes of one of these isolates revealed a mosaic structure compatible with an interspecific recombination origin. Southern blot analysis and nucleotide sequence determinations showed the presence of an ant-like gene in the intergenic parE-parC regions of the S. pneumoniae Cipr isolates with high rates of variations in their parE and parC QRDRs. The ant-like gene was absent from typical S. pneumoniae strains, whereas it was present in the intergenic parE-parC regions of the viridans group streptococci (Streptococcus mitis and Streptococcus oralis). These results suggest that the viridans group streptococci are acting as donors in the horizontal transfer of fluoroquinolone resistance genes to S. pneumoniae.

Patron's review. The role of images in the development of Renaissance natural history

2011 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 189-213 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sachiko Kusukawa
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Visual Culture ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
History Of ◽  
Important Means ◽  
Over Time

This review surveys recent scholarship on the history of natural history with special attention to the role of images in the Renaissance. It discusses how classicism, collecting and printing were important catalysts for the Renaissance study of nature. Classicism provided inspiration of how to study and what kind of object to examine in nature, and several images from the period can be shown to reflect these classical values. The development of the passion for collecting and the rise of commerce in nature's commodities led to the circulation of a large number of exotic flora and fauna. Pictures enabled scholars to access unobtainable objects, build up knowledge of rare objects over time, and study them long after the live specimens had died away. Printing replicated pictures alongside texts and enabled scholars to share and accumulate knowledge. Images, alongside objects and text, were an important means of studying nature. Naturalists' images, in turn, became part of a larger visual culture in which nature was regarded as a beautiful and fascinating object of admiration.

scholarly journals Interspecies Recombination Contributes Minimally to Fluoroquinolone Resistance in Streptococcus pneumoniae

2001 ◽  
Vol 45 (9) ◽  
pp. 2631-2634 ◽  
Author(s):  
Darrin J. Bast ◽  
Joyce C. S. de Azavedo ◽  
Tiffany Y. Tam ◽  
Laurie Kilburn ◽  
Carla Duncan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Streptococcus Pneumoniae ◽  
Quinolone Resistance ◽  
Clinical Isolates ◽  
Fluoroquinolone Resistance ◽  
Type Ii ◽  
Viridans Group Streptococci ◽  
Interspecies Recombination

ABSTRACT Analysis of 71 ciprofloxacin-resistant (MIC ≥ 4 μg/ml)Streptococcus pneumoniae clinical isolates revealed only 1 for which the quinolone resistance-determining regions of theparC, parE, and gyrB genes were genetically related to those of viridans group streptococci. Our findings support the occurrence of interspecies recombination of type II topoisomerase genes; however, its contribution to the emergence of quinolone resistance among pneumococci appears to have been minimal.

scholarly journals Fluoroquinolone Resistance Associated with Target Mutations and Active Efflux in Oropharyngeal Colonizing Isolates of Viridans Group Streptococci

2000 ◽  
Vol 44 (8) ◽  
pp. 2197-2200 ◽  
Author(s):  
François Guerin ◽  
Emmanuelle Varon ◽  
Annie Buu Hoï ◽  
Laurent Gutmann ◽  
Isabelle Podglajen
Keyword(s):  
Streptococcus Pneumoniae ◽  
Hospitalized Patients ◽  
Fluoroquinolone Resistance ◽  
Active Efflux ◽  
Control Subjects ◽  
Healthy Control ◽  
Viridans Group Streptococci

ABSTRACT Oropharyngeal samples from 60 hospitalized patients (30 fluoroquinolone [FQ]-treated and 30 non-FQ-treated patients) and 30 untreated nonhospitalized healthy control subjects yielded 20 isolates of viridans group streptococci with reduced susceptibility to FQ, mostly from the hospitalized patients. An efflux phenotype was commonly encountered, expressed either alone or with topoisomerase mutations. Interspecies transfer of the efflux phenotype was demonstrated via transformation of Streptococcus pneumoniae R6 with DNA fromS. mitis and S. oralis.

scholarly journals Redefining the Small Regulatory RNA Transcriptome in Streptococcus pneumoniae Serotype 2 Strain D39

2019 ◽  
Vol 201 (14) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dhriti Sinha ◽  
Kurt Zimmer ◽  
Todd A. Cameron ◽  
Douglas B. Rusch ◽  
Malcolm E. Winkler ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Streptococcus Pneumoniae ◽  
Respiratory Pathogen ◽  
Rna Seq ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Small Regulatory Rna ◽  
Bacterial Rna ◽  
Small Regulatory Rnas ◽  
Regulatory Rnas ◽  
Specific Virulence

ABSTRACT Streptococcus pneumoniae (pneumococcus) is a major human respiratory pathogen and a leading cause of bacterial pneumonia worldwide. Small regulatory RNAs (sRNAs), which often act by posttranscriptionally regulating gene expression, have been shown to be crucial for the virulence of S. pneumoniae and other bacterial pathogens. Over 170 putative sRNAs have been identified in the S. pneumoniae TIGR4 strain (serotype 4) through transcriptomic studies, and a subset of these sRNAs has been further implicated in regulating pneumococcal pathogenesis. However, there is little overlap in the sRNAs identified among these studies, which indicates that the approaches used for sRNA identification were not sufficiently sensitive and robust and that there are likely many more undiscovered sRNAs encoded in the S. pneumoniae genome. Here, we sought to comprehensively identify sRNAs in Avery’s virulent S. pneumoniae strain D39 using two independent RNA sequencing (RNA-seq)-based approaches. We developed an unbiased method for identifying novel sRNAs from bacterial RNA-seq data and have further tested the specificity of our analysis program toward identifying sRNAs encoded by both strains D39 and TIGR4. Interestingly, the genes for 15% of the putative sRNAs identified in strain TIGR4, including ones previously implicated in virulence, are not present in the strain D39 genome, suggesting that the differences in sRNA repertoires between these two serotypes may contribute to their strain-specific virulence properties. Finally, this study has identified 66 new sRNA candidates in strain D39, 30 of which have been further validated, raising the total number of sRNAs that have been identified in strain D39 to 112. IMPORTANCE Recent work has shown that sRNAs play crucial roles in S. pneumoniae pathogenesis, as inactivation of nearly one-third of the putative sRNA genes identified in one study led to reduced fitness or virulence in a murine model. Yet our understanding of sRNA-mediated gene regulation in S. pneumoniae has been hindered by limited knowledge about these regulatory RNAs, including which sRNAs are synthesized by different S. pneumoniae strains. We sought to address this problem by developing a sensitive sRNA detection technique to identify sRNAs in S. pneumoniae D39. A comparison of our data set reported here to those of other RNA-seq studies for S. pneumoniae strain D39 and TIGR4 has provided new insights into the S. pneumoniae sRNA transcriptome.

scholarly journals Evaluating Employment Arbitration: A Call for Better Empirical Research

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel Estreicher ◽  
Michael Heise ◽  
David Sherwyn
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Work ◽  
Initial Step ◽  
Legal Issues ◽  
Scholarly Work ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Data Limitations ◽  
History Of ◽  
Important Means ◽  
The Law ◽  
Employment Litigation

70 Rutg. L. Rev. 101 (2018).Since at least 1991, issues surrounding mandatory arbitration of employment and other disputes have intrigued, perplexed, angered, gratified, and confounded academics, politicians, lawyers, and others.As with many legal issues, the first wave of scholarly work centered on the law. As the law has pretty much settled, academics have turned to empirical work, focusing on how employment arbitration works, and how it compares to employment litigation. In part due to pressure from California legislation, the American Arbitration Association (“AAA”), the nation’s leading provider of arbitration services, opened access to its data base. Owing to inevitable data limitations, most analyses have focused on outcomes—comparisons between litigation verdicts/judgments and arbitration awards. This work suffers from a serious selection bias, for there is no reason to believe that cases that result in arbitration awards are otherwise comparable to cases that have survived the several serious gauntlets that lie in the path of a case before it goes to trial. Because mediation is often an initial step in most employment arbitration system and arbitrators are not likely to consider dispositive motions, weaker cases are likely to get to a hearing in arbitration than in court.We wholeheartedly endorse good empirical work as an important means of understanding and addressing controversial policy issues, especially in the arbitration arena, and tried our hand at such work a decade ago. We have written this paper to encourage research that goes beyond evaluating awards within the AAA data set and to engage in a longitudinal study of the history of claims—from when they are initially filed with administrative agencies or arbitration organizations to when they are settled or adjudicated.

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