Coagulase-negative staphylococci (CNS) belong to the normal microbial flora of the skin and mucous membranes of humans. The most frequently encountered CNS species in humans, in decreasing order of occurrence, are Staphylococcus epidermidis, Staphylococcus haemolyticus, Staphylococcus saprophyticus, and Staphylococcus lugdunensis (8). CNS are an important cause of nosocomial infections, particularly causing foreign device-related infections and infections among immunocompromised patients. In a recent prospective laboratorybased surveillance in four Finnish acute-care hospitals, 76% of the blood culture CNS isolates were resistant to methicillin (meticillin) (23

Our point-prevalence survey followed an outbreak of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in a long-term care facility and identified five MRSA strains, of which two possessed an outbreak genotype not encountered previously and three had another profile. All of them possessed SCCmec type V. Six methicillinsensitive S. aureus strains were genotypically related to the epidemic strains.In long-term care facilities (LTCFs) methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) strains are more often associated with colonization than clinical infection. LTCFs may also represent a reservoir of MRSA, and therefore create a two-way flow of MRSA between hospitals and LTCFs. Only a few studies have previously described the molecular epidemiology of MRSA in nursing homes (2,4,12,15,16). In all of them, MRSA strains have been identical or closely related to the strains found in hospitals in the region.An outbreak of MRSA in a health care ward and an associated nursing home of a 5,000-inhabitant municipality in northern Finland during autumn 2003 was caused by an outbreak MRSA strain of a new pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) (FIN-22) profile and a multilocus sequence type (MLST) (ST-27) not encountered previously in Finland. With this intriguing genotype knowledge and the epidemiological fact that the LTCF is located in a remote area with limited patient transfer, we performed a point-prevalence survey 6 months later. We also assessed the molecular epidemiology of MRSA and methicillin-susceptible Staphylococcus aureus (MSSA) strains, comparing the results to the national strain collection.Setting and outbreak. A 34-bed health care ward (HCW) mainly takes care of elderly patients with multiple underlying diseases but also provides primary care, and an associated 46-bed nursing home (NH) is only for the elderly. Patient transfer from HCW to the nearby secondary-care hospital occurs approximately 0 to 2 times per week, and from the NH to the HCW and to the secondary-care hospital approximately 40 and 2 to 5 times per year, respectively.The first isolate of MRSA was found in a urine culture in the HCW in August 2003. The index patient was placed in a single room and cared for according to contact precautions. All three roommates were screened for MRSA. The following data were collected for each patient: age, sex, use of antimicrobials, foreign devices, and length of nursing stay. The screening swabs (Probact transport swab; Schofield St-Heywood, United Kingdom) were cultivated on nonselective sheep blood agar (SBA), and on selective oxacillin resistance screening agar (ORSAB CM1008, Oxoid, United Kingdom) plates. The SBA plates were incubated for 48 h and ORSAB for 96 h and inspected daily. S. aureus-like colonies were picked and subcultured onto SBA. The colonies were identified by conventional biochemical tests (8).Antimicrobial resistance to cefoxitin, cephalexin, gentamicin, tobramycin, erythromycin, clindamycin, chloramphenicol, ciprofloxacin, levofloxacin, rifampin, fusidic acid, trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazo...

We studied the relative number of lymphocyte subsets in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of patients with active multiple sclerosis. The cells were double-labeled with monoclonal antibodies and were studied using a fluorescence-activated cell analyzer. The number of Leu2+Leu15+ cells and Leu3+Leu18+ cells was markedly reduced in the CSF but not in the peripheral blood of the patients. The number of Leu3+Leu18+ cells was reduced also in the CSF of control patients (patients with other inflammatory or infectious neurological diseases).

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Tumorigenicity in immunocompetent syngeneic mice and H-2 class I antigen expression of BPV1-transformed mouse cell lines had no correlation. H-2 expression was examined using monoclonal anti-(H-2Kb) and anti-(H-2Db) antibodies in immunofluorescence staining for flow cytometry analysis and by determining the sensitivity of the cells to cytolysis by allostimulated spleen cells. Nontumorigenic cell lines were as resistant as tumorigenic cell lines to natural killer activity. The results indicate that in our model defence by natural killer cells is not a decisive factor. The results also show that instead of or in addition to H-2 class I antigens other factors (e.g. the presence or absence of virus-specific antigens) are important in determining the tumorigenicity of BPV1-transformed cell lines.

T‐lymphocyte subpopulations were studied in the blood of 25 multiple sclerosis patients and 25 healthy age and sex‐matched controls. Monoclonal antibodies labelled with different fluorochromes were used to define the percentages of CD4 (helper/inducer) and CD8 (suppressor/cytotoxic) positive cells and to dissect them into phenotypic subgroups. The results confirm the decrease in CD8 positive cells in the blood associated with multiple sclerosis. The subset showing the most marked decrease was the CD11 marker negative population, which has been reported to be associated with cytotoxicity rather than suppression. There was no significant decrease in the percentage of cells positive for both CD4 and CD45R markers reported to contain suppressor‐inducer or naive T‐helper cells in the MS patients. The results suggest that further dissection of T‐cell subpopulations may clarify our understanding of this disease process.

Selenium (Se) is known to affect the immune system, and decreased Se/levels in blood of patients with moderate or severe psoriasis have been reported. In this study, the effect of Se/supplementation (400 micrograms/day for 6 weeks as Se/yeast, containing about 70% selenomethionine, SeMet) on skin and blood Se/content, on skin glutathione peroxidase activity and on various chemical and immunological parameters of blood and skin was investigated in 7 psoriatic patients. Before the SeMet/supplementation, serum and blood Se/levels were at the normal range, but they increased 42/45% during the Se/dosage, while zinc levels remained unchanged. Se/dependent glutathione peroxidase activity in both normal and lesional psoriatic skin remained unchanged during the trial, although a small net Se/uptake was detected. At the same time, a slight but statistically significant increase in the number of CD4+ T/cells was observed in the reticular dermis of the psoriatic lesions whereas the numbers of CD8+, CD11c+, and CD1+ cells were not significantly altered. Also, a relatively high number of patients (3 out of 7) showed a strongly reduced number of gamma/delta T/lymphocytes or increased CD8+ T/cells (2 patients) in peripheral blood. However, SeMet/supplementation was not related to these abnormalities or to the number of other peripheral blood immunocytes or to serum immunoglobulin levels. In addition, no marked effect on the clinical condition of the patients was observed. This pilot study suggests that SeMet may be able to modulate the immunological mechanism of psoriatic lesions by increasing the number of CD4+ T/cells.