Fernanda Arboite de Oliveira

Serological Characterization and Prevalence of spvR Genes in Salmonella Isolated from Foods Involved in Outbreaks in Brazil

Salmonella strains (n = 75) isolated from foods involved in foodborne outbreaks occurred in Rio Grande do Sul State, Brazil, during 1999 and 2000 were studied. Strains were serotyped and submitted to PCR analysis to verify the prevalence of Salmonella plasmid virulence (spvR) regulatory gene. Among the 75 isolates, 73 (97%) were classified as Salmonella enterica serovar Enteritidis. All of the Salmonella strains isolated in 1999 were classified as serotype Enteritidis, whereas in 2000 two isolates were serotyped as Salmonella Derby and Salmonella Typhimurium. Regarding the prevalence of spvR gene, 62 strains (82.7%) were PCR positive, and a positive correlation (P < 0.05) between the strains of Salmonella Enteritidis and the presence of spvR gene was demonstrated, which suggests that this gene is a characteristic of the Salmonella Enteritidis analyzed.

Identification of heat stable protease of Klebsiella oxytoca isolated from raw milk

Aims:  The aim of this study was to identify and characterize heat stable proteinases of psychrotrophic proteolytic bacteria isolated from raw milk.

Drug use among drivers who drank on alcohol outlets from Porto Alegre, Brazil

BACKGROUND Driving under the influence of multiple substances is a public health concern, but there is little epidemiological data about their combined use and putative impact on driving in low and middle-income countries where traffic crashes have been clustering in recent years. The aim of this study is to estimate the prevalence of alcohol and drug use - as well as their associated factors - among drivers in the context of alcohol outlets (AOs). METHODS A probability three-stage sample survey was conducted in Porto Alegre, Brazil. Individuals who were leaving AO were screened, with the selection of 683 drivers who met the inclusion criteria. Drivers answered a structured interview, were breathalyzed, and had their saliva collected for drug screening. Prevalences were assessed using domain estimation and logistic regression models assessed covariates associated with substance use. FINDINGS Benzodiazepines 3.9% (SE 2.13) and cocaine 3.8% (SE 1.3) were the most frequently detected drugs in saliva. Among drivers who were going to drive, 11% had at least one drug identified by the saliva drug screening, 0.4% two, and 0.1% three drugs in addition to alcohol. In multivariable analyses, having a blood alcohol concentration (BAC)>0.06% was found to be associated with a 3.64 times (CI 95% 1.79-7.39) higher chance of drug detection, compared with interviewees with lower BACs. CONCLUSIONS To drive under the influence of multiple substances is likely to be found in this setting, highlighting an association between harmful patterns of consume of alcohol and the misuse of other substances.

Prediction of myotoxic and neurotoxic activities in phospholipases a2 from primary sequence analysis

We developed a methodology to predict myotoxicity and neurotoxicity of proteins of the family of Phospholipases A2 (PLA2) from sequence data. Combining two bioinformatics tools, MEME and HMMER, it was possible to detect conserved motifs and represent them as Hidden Markov Models (HMMs). In ten-fold cross validation testing we have determined the efficacy of each motif on prediction of PLA2 function. We selected motifs whose efficacy in predict function were above 60 % at the Minimum Error Point (MEP), the score in which there are fewest both false positives and false negatives. Combining HMMs of the best motifs for each function, we have achieved a mean efficacy of 98 ± 4 % on prediction of myotoxic function and 77.4 ± 4.8% on prediction of neurotoxicity. We have used the results of this work to build a web tool (available at www.cbiot.ufrgs.br/bioinfo/ phospholipase) to classify PLA2s of unknown function regarding myotoxic or neurotoxic activity.