Project description:S. aureus has a propensity to cause endocarditis; diabetes mellitus is a frequent underlying comorbitity in patents with S. aureus endocarditis. S. aureus Affymetrix GeneChips were used to compare S. aureus expression properties in cardiac vegatations isolated from diabetic and nondiabetic rats. S. aureus Affymetrix GeneChips were also used to compare the S. aureus expression properties of cardiac vegatations (both diabetic and nondiabetic) in comparsions to planktonic cells. Few differences were observed between the expression properties of S. aureus harvested from diabetic vs. nondiabetic cardiac vegatations. Significant differences were observed between the expression properties of S. aureus harvested from cardiac vegetations in comparison to exponential and/or stationary phase planktonically grown cells.
Project description:Infective endocarditis, a life-threatening condition, poses significant challenges for early diagnosis and personalized treatment due to insufficient biomarkers and limited understanding of its pathophysiology. Here, we analyzed plasma and vegetation proteomes from 238 patients with infective endocarditis and 100 controls, with two external validation cohorts. We developed machine learning-based diagnostic and prognostic models for infective endocarditis, with area under the curve values of 0.98 and 0.87, respectively. Leucine-rich alpha-2-glycoprotein 1 and NADH:ubiquinone oxidoreductase subunit B4 are potential biomarkers associated with infection severity. Pathologically, protein networks characterized by glycometabolism, amino acid metabolism, and adhesion are linked to adverse events. Liver dysfunction may exacerbate the condition in patients with severe heart failure. Neutrophil extracellular traps emerge as promising therapeutic targets in Streptococcus or Staphylococcus aureus infections. Collectively, our findings provide significant insights into biomarker discovery and underlying pathophysiological mechanisms in infective endocarditis, advancing early diagnosis and personalized medicine.
Project description:Mapping of transposon mutant library during growth in Brain Heart Infusion (BHI) broth and in a rat endocarditis model. The goal of this study was to identify factors that play a role in E. faecium endocarditis by selection of transposon insertion mutants that lost the capacity to cause infections.
Project description:We present the case of a 76-year-old man with recently treated infective endocarditis and severe residual native pure aortic regurgitation that was causing recurrent pulmonary edema. In view of his prohibitive surgical risk, he underwent transcatheter aortic valve implant with an excellent clinical outcome. (Level of Difficulty: Intermediate.).
Project description:Transcriptional profiles of cardiac valves from patients with bacterial infectious endocarditis (3 infected with Streptococcus sp. and 2 infected with Staphylococcus aureus) were compared with uninfected cardiac valves (7 patients) from patients with hemodynamic disturbing events
Project description:BACKGROUND:Prosthetic valve endocarditis (PVE) is a serious complication, and it is difficult to treat marked adhesion and infectious tissue. CASE PRESENTATION:There were four patients with aortic PVE, whose ages ranged from 59 to 80 years. In all patients, transoesophageal echocardiography revealed periannular abscess formation. We applied aortic annular enlargement techniques using a composite three-layer patch to repair the defects after radical debridement of the abscesses, and then replaced the prosthetic valves on the reconstructed annuli. All patients received antibiotics after surgery and recovered well without recurrence. CONCLUSIONS:The aortic annular enlargement techniques provided a good field of vision at the complicated annulus, and our original patch was useful for repairing the aortic annulus and its surrounding apparatus.
Project description:Diagnosis of culture-negative infective endocarditis usually implies indirect pathogen identification by serologic or molecular techniques. Clinical metagenomics, relying on next-generation sequencing (NGS) is an emerging approach that allows pathogen identification in challenging situations, as evidenced by a clinical case. We sequenced the DNA extracted from the surgically-removed frozen valve tissue from a patient with suspected infective endocarditis with negative blood and valve cultures. Mapping of the sequence reads against reference genomic sequences, a 16S rRNA gene database and clade-specific marker genes suggested an infection caused by Cardiobacterium hominis.