A new triazole-linked analogue of DNA ((TL)DNA) has been designed and synthesized using click chemistry. The chain elongation reaction using copper-catalyzed Huisgen cycloaddition was successful and gave the artificial oligonucleotide that formed a stable double strand with the complementary strand of natural DNA.

We previously reported an outbreak in a neurosurgery ward of catheter-associated urinary tract infection with multidrug-resistant (MDR) Pseudomonas aeruginosa strain IMCJ2.S1, carrying the 6-N-aminoglycoside acetyltransferase gene [aac(6)-Iae]. For further epidemiologic studies, 214 clinical isolates of MDR P. aeruginosa showing resistance to imipenem (MIC > 16 g/ml), amikacin (MIC > 64 g/ml), and ciprofloxacin (MIC > 4 g/ml) were collected from 13 hospitals in the same prefecture in Japan. We also collected 70 clinical isolates of P. aeruginosa that were sensitive to one or more of these antibiotics and compared their characteristics with those of the MDR P. aeruginosa isolates. Of the 214 MDR P. aeruginosa isolates, 212 (99%) were serotype O11. We developed a loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) assay and a slide agglutination test for detection of the aac(6)-Iae gene and the AAC(6)-Iae protein, respectively. Of the 212 MDR P. aeruginosa isolates, 212 (100%) and 207 (98%) were positive in the LAMP assay and in the agglutination test, respectively. Mutations of gyrA and parC genes resulting in amino acid substitutions were detected in 213 of the 214 MDR P. aeruginosa isolates (99%). Of the 214 MDR P. aeruginosa isolates, 212 showed pulsed-field gel electrophoresis patterns with >70% similarity to that of IMCJ2.S1 and 83 showed a pattern identical to that of IMCJ2.S1, indicating that clonal expansion of MDR P. aeruginosa occurred in community hospitals in this area. The methods developed in this study to detect aac(6)-Iae were rapid and effective in diagnosing infections caused by various MDR P. aeruginosa clones.Pseudomonas aeruginosa causes nosocomial infections as a result of its ubiquitous nature, ability to survive in moist environments, and resistance to many antibiotics and antiseptics. A serious problem is the emergence of multidrug-resistant (MDR) P. aeruginosa strains resistant to ␤-lactams, aminoglycosides, and quinolones (34,39,46 We previously reported a nosocomial outbreak of catheterassociated urinary tract infection involving new MDR P. aeruginosa strain IMCJ2.S1, which occurred in a neurosurgery ward of a hospital located in the Tohoku area of Japan (46). This strain showed broad-spectrum resistance to aminoglycosides, ␤-lactams, fluoroquinolones, tetracyclines, sulfonamide, and chlorhexidine. We found that IMCJ2.S1 harbored a novel class 1 integron, In113, containing an array of three gene cassettes of the metallo-␤-lactamase (MBL) bla IMP-1 gene, aminoglycoside 6Ј-acetyltransferase aac(6Ј)-Iae gene, and aminoglycoside 3Ј-adenylyltransferase aadA1 gene (46). This strain possessed mutations of the gyrA (83Thr3Ile) and parC (87Ser3Leu) genes involving amino acid substitutions, resulting in high-level resistance to fluoroquinolones.In the geographic area where the MDR P. aeruginosa outbreak occurred (46), hospitals and a commercial clinical laboratory were surveyed for similar organisms. Because 99% of the MDR P. aeruginosa isolates analyzed were found to harbor the aac(6Ј)-Iae gene, we d...

Late endosomes and lysosomes directly fuse for content mixing to form hybrid organelles. In the present study, we show that the Caenorhabditis elegans ARL-8 GTPase is localized primarily to lysosomes and involved in late endosome-lysosome fusion in the macrophage-like coelomocytes.

Although doped poly(3,4‐ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) is extensively used in electronic devices, their molecular‐weight distributions and inadequately defined structures have hindered the elucidation of their underlying conduction mechanism. In this study, we introduce the simplest discrete oligomer models: EDOT dimer radical cation salts. Single‐crystal structural analyses revealed their one‐dimensional (1D) columnar structures, in which the donors were uniformly stacked. Band calculations identified 1D metallic band structures with a strong intracolumnar orbital interaction (band width W≈1 eV), implying the origin of the high conductivity of doped PEDOT. Interestingly, the salts exhibited semiconducting behavior reminiscent of genuine Mott states as a result of electron–electron repulsion (U) dominant over W. This study realized basic models with tunable W and U to understand the conduction mechanism of doped PEDOT through structural modification in oligomers, including the conjugation length.