Post-contrast images showed there was peripherally an avid ring o

Post-contrast images showed there was peripherally an avid ring of enhancement along the cysts. There was also an irregular rim with effacement of the roots along the peripheral aspect, and likely there was enhancement of the roots in this location as well (Figure 1). Hematological evaluation and biochemical parameters were normal. The clinical diagnosis was arachnoid cyst or arachnoiditis or possibly spinal tumors, and surgery was believed to be warranted because of the patient’s progressive neurological symptoms. A lumbar

laminectomy L1 to L4 was performed and the underlying dura mater was opened. Beneath were grossly abnormally thickened arachnoid and a round thick fluid-filled selleck chemicals llc sac that was directly compressing the conus medullaris and the cauda equina. This was carefully removed and sent for pathology. Histological examination was compatible with neurocysticercosis (NCC;

Figure 2). The serum was positive for anticysticercus antibodies by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), using glycoproteins purified from Taenia solium cyst fluid as antigens. Examination of stools was negative for the presence of parasites, proglottids, and ova. The patient underwent full craniospinal axis MRI evaluation, which demonstrated no evidence of other cysticercosis lesions. She recovered from the surgery uneventfully, and at a 3-month follow-up visit she complained of mild residual left leg numbness and weakness in the legs after prolonged standing. She had subjective decrease in light touch sensation on the left Selleckchem LBH589 lower leg compared with the right and strength was slightly diminished on the left compared with the right leg that had normal strength. To further evaluate where the infection was acquired from, we analyzed cytochrome c oxidase l (cox1) of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) using the formalin-fixed Cyclooxygenase (COX) and paraffin-embedded histological specimen prepared from the patient and stored in the pathology department in tissue blocks.1 Comparing with the GenBank database, the sequence was completely identical to the cox1 sequence of T solium from Korea and China (data not shown).1 NCC is a neurologic

infestation caused by the larval form of T solium. Taenia solium has a complex life cycle that requires two hosts. Humans are the only known definitive hosts for the adult cestode, whereas pigs are the natural intermediate host and humans may become accidental intermediate hosts for the larval form or cysticercus.2 Humans acquire the intestinal tapeworm T solium by eating raw pork. They acquire NCC by ingesting T solium eggs through fecal oral contamination. In the United States, NCC has become an increasingly important emerging infection. This has largely been driven by the influx of immigrants from endemic regions.3 Despite an increasing number of NCC cases overall, the number of spinal NCC cases remains very low.4 The incidence of spinal NCC among travelers is extremely rare.

4,5 Otherwise meningococcal disease usually has been considered t

4,5 Otherwise meningococcal disease usually has been considered to be rare among travelers (Figure 2).6 A single retrospective survey has attempted to quantify the GSK126 in vivo risk of meningococcal disease among international travelers originating in industrialized countries.7 Health authorities

in 56 of 108 contacted countries (51.9%) completed questionnaires concerning reported cases of meningococcal disease, and tourism data were derived from statistics provided by the World Tourism Organization and national tourism authorities for the study period (1986–1989). On the basis of 13 cases imported to 56 countries, a monthly incidence rate of 0.4 per million was extrapolated, which corresponds to approximately 0.4 per 100,000 population per year.7 When this rate is compared with the commonly quoted annual incidence rate of 0.5 to 10 cases per 100,000 population in industrialized countries,8,9 it appears that ordinary travel does not result in an increased risk for meningococcal disease. As in the general population,

infections in travelers can occur in healthy persons without any apparent risk factors and regardless of the type of traveling or the travel destination. In the past few years, a number of anecdotal reports of meningococcal disease among travelers have been published (Table 1).10–15 Smad inhibition An additional six cases, which so far are unpublished, have been detected in the GeoSentinel, a worldwide communication and data collection network for the surveillance of travel-related Liothyronine Sodium morbidity.16 Among them, two occurred after a visit to Disney World (Pat Schlagenhauf, personal communication). This demonstrates that, among travelers, meningococcal disease may occur in all parts of the world and in various types of travelers—trekkers, leisure and business travelers, students, and pilgrims—and in all age groups. As in the population affected at home, children and young travelers were most frequently affected. Some of the cases of meningococcal disease in travelers reported in recent years confirm what we know from

data in other populations: environmental risk is increased by staying in dormitories,11,15 educational or military institutions,17,18 and refugee camps19 and by attending sporting events20,21 and discotheques.22 Clusters of meningococcal disease caused by the same strain have occurred in children whose connection was riding the same school bus,23 which indicates there could be potential for transmission aboard tour buses. Almost 30 years ago during an outbreak situation, six trekkers fell ill in Nepal.24 The sum of these examples illustrates that the risk of meningococcal disease in travelers can vary based on destination, mode of transport, type of accommodation, and reason for travel/destination activities. While high-risk groups can be determined primarily on theoretical and general epidemiological considerations, there is no zero risk in any traveler.

In our simulations of the thalamocortical system, deafferentation

In our simulations of the thalamocortical system, deafferentation of peripheral thalamic afferents leads to hyperpolarization and subsequent bursting in the reticular nucleus. This provides strong inhibitory feedback Roscovitine to both the specific and the non-specific thalamic nuclei and initiates a feedback cycle of thalamic bursts in the theta frequency range. The divergent connections between the reticular and non-specific thalamic nuclei provide synchronization of the oscillating circuits. Functional silencing of the non-specific model nucleus limits reverberation and rescues the system from these oscillations.

The same effect could be achieved by increasing the input to the non-specific nucleus from cortical areas. The model predicts that the invasiveness selleck chemical of functional neurosurgery can be reduced by targeting only deafferented areas in the medial nuclei as these are the key areas for generation and maintenance

of pathological rhythms. “
“Electrical activity in the gamma frequency range is instrumental for temporal encoding on the millisecond scale in attentive vertebrate brains. Surprisingly, also circadian pacemaker neurons in the cockroach Rhyparobia maderae (Leucophaea maderae) employ fast spontaneous rhythmic activity in the gamma band frequency range (20–70 Hz) together with slow rhythmic activity. The ionic conductances controlling this fast spontaneous activity are still unknown. Here, Ca2+ imaging combined with pharmacology was employed to analyse ion channels underlying spontaneous activity in dispersed circadian pacemakers of the adult accessory medulla, which controls circadian locomotor activity Sirolimus in vitro rhythms. Fast spontaneous Ca2+ transients in circadian pacemakers accompany tetrodotoxin (TTX)-blockable spontaneous action potentials. In contrast to

vertebrate pacemakers, the spontaneous depolarisations from rest appear to be rarely initiated via TTX-sensitive sustained Na+ channels. Instead, they are predominantly driven by mibefradil-sensitive, low-voltage-activated Ca2+ channels and DK-AH269-sensitive hyperpolarisation-activated, cyclic nucleotide-gated cation channels. Rhythmic depolarisations activate voltage-gated Na+ channels and nifedipine-sensitive high-voltage-activated Ca2+ channels. Together with Ca2+ rises, the depolarisations open repolarising small-conductance but not large-conductance Ca2+-dependent K+ channels. In contrast, we hypothesise that P/Q-type Ca2+ channels coupled to large-conductance Ca2+-dependent K+ channels are involved in input-dependent activity. “
“A major feature of focal hand dystonia (FHD) pathophysiology is the loss of inhibition. One inhibitory process, surround inhibition, for which the cortical mechanisms are still unknown, is abnormal in FHD.

In two experiments, we studied two-interval forced-choice detecti

In two experiments, we studied two-interval forced-choice detection of an auditory ‘ba’ in acoustic noise, paired with various visual and tactile stimuli that were identically presented in the two observation intervals. Detection thresholds were reduced under the multisensory conditions vs. the auditory-only condition, even though the visual and/or tactile stimuli alone could not inform the correct response. Results were analysed relative to an ideal observer for which intrinsic (internal) noise and efficiency were independent contributors to detection sensitivity. Across experiments,

intrinsic noise was unaffected by the multisensory stimuli, arguing against the merging (integrating) of multisensory inputs into a unitary speech signal, but sampling efficiency was increased to varying degrees, supporting refinement of knowledge about the auditory stimulus. The steepness www.selleckchem.com/products/chir-99021-ct99021-hcl.html of the psychometric functions decreased with increasing sampling efficiency, suggesting that the ‘task-irrelevant’ visual and tactile stimuli reduced uncertainty about the acoustic signal. Visible speech was not superior for enhancing auditory speech detection. Our results reject multisensory neuronal integration and speech-specific neural processing as explanations for the enhanced auditory speech detection under noisy conditions. Instead, they support a more rudimentary form of multisensory

interaction: the otherwise task-irrelevant sensory systems inform the auditory system

about when to listen. “
“Skilled motor control is regulated by the convergence of somatic sensory and motor signals in brain and spinal motor PCI32765 circuits. Cervical deafferentation is known to diminish forelimb somatic sensory representations rapidly and to impair forelimb movements. Our focus was to determine what effect deafferentation has on the motor representations in motor cortex, knowledge of which could provide new insights into the locus of impairment following G protein-coupled receptor kinase somatic sensory loss, such as after spinal cord injury or stroke. We hypothesized that somatic sensory information is important for cortical motor map topography. To investigate this we unilaterally transected the dorsal rootlets in adult rats from C4 to C8 and mapped the forelimb motor representations using intracortical microstimulation, immediately after rhizotomy and following a 2-week recovery period. Immediately after deafferentation we found that the size of the distal representation was reduced. However, despite this loss of input there were no changes in motor threshold. Two weeks after deafferentation, animals showed a further distal representation reduction, an expansion of the elbow representation, and a small elevation in distal movement threshold. These changes were specific to the forelimb map in the hemisphere contralateral to deafferentation; there were no changes in the hindlimb or intact-side forelimb representations.

5% (w/v) unless indicated otherwise The cultures were incubated

5% (w/v) unless indicated otherwise. The cultures were incubated under shaking at 30 °C, and growth was monitored every hour. For growth experiments on agar plates, cells were precultured as described previously and diluted to an OD600 nm of 0.5 in CGXII medium. From this, a twofold dilution series in CGXII was prepared and 2 μL of each dilution selleck inhibitor spotted onto CGXII agar plates containing the appropriate carbon source. Agar plates were incubated for 24–48 h at 30 °C. For gene inactivation in C. glutamicum,

a vector integration method was used (Elleling & Reyes, 2005; Jolkver et al., 2009). To produce an insertion in cg2937, an c. 500 bp fragment of the target gene was amplified by PCR using the oligonucleotides 5′-ACTCGCCGCAATTTCCTCCG-3′ and 5′-CGAGGCGTTCGCTGATGATG-3′ and cloned into the pDRIVE vector (Qiagen), which was verified by PCR. Transformation into C. glutamicum was performed using electroporation (2.5 kV, 5 ms), and positive colonies were selected on kanamycin-containing agar plates, and chromosomal integration was confirmed by PCR using primers binding c. 100 bp before

the start codon (5′-GTCTGATGTCTGATGTATAT-3′) and the appropriate M13 primer for the pDRIVE vector (5′-AACAGCTATGACCATG-3′). Cells were precultured as described previously for the growth experiment unless annotated otherwise. Cells were washed three times in CGXII media containing no carbon source. Cells were diluted to an OD600 nm of 1 in CGXII media supplemented with 10 mM glucose and incubated www.selleckchem.com/products/VX-770.html on ice until the uptake assay was performed. Before the measurement, cells were incubated under stirring at 30 °C for energizing. The assay was started by adding 2 μM [14C] Neu5Ac. Every minute over 5 min, 100-μL samples were taken and cells were collected by rapid filtration (0.45 μm pore size; Millipore). Cells were washed with 5 mL CGXII medium, and the radioactivity retained on the filter discs was determined by liquid scintillation counting. The number of colony-forming units in each culture was also determined using serial dilutions onto BHI plates and incubation at 30 °C overnight

followed by counting. We identified orthologues of known sialic acid catabolism genes from E. coli using the ncbi blastp and identified similar sialic acid clusters across the Corynebacteriaciae using XBase (Chaudhuri et al., 2008) and the SEED (Overbeek et al., 2005). Ureohydrolase To verify the initial phenotype array data, which suggested that C. glutamicum ATCC 13032 could grow on Neu5Ac (Holder et al., 2011), we grew the same strain on a minimal CGXII medium with 0.5 % Neu5Ac as the sole carbon source. No growth was observed in the absence of an added carbon source, but there was clear growth with Neu5Ac, albeit with a long lag phase compared with growth on glucose (Fig. 1a solid symbols). After 24 h growth, the final growth yield was very high with glucose, giving an OD600 nm of c. 17, while the value for Neu5Ac was c. 7.

, 2007a, b) and Natrialba magadii (Ruiz & De Castro, 2007)

, 2007a, b) and Natrialba magadii (Ruiz & De Castro, 2007).

Also, Fukushima et al. (2005) and Shafiei et al. (2011) reported organic-solvent-tolerant halophilic α-amylase from Haloarcula sp. strain S-1 and Nesterenkonia sp. strain F. However, to the best of our knowledge, there are no reports on organic-solvent-tolerant β-amylases from halophiles. The halophile Salimicrobium sp. has been studied with regard to its ecology, physiology, biochemistry, and more recently, its genetics (Yoon et al., 2007, 2009). However, the microorganism’s biotechnological HIF inhibitor possibilities have not been extensively exploited, and no reports about the enzyme production from Salimicrobium sp have been published. In this study, we report the purification and characterization of β-amylase and protease from a newly halophilic strain LY20, including organic solvent tolerance of the enzymes. The strain LY20 was isolated from the saline soil of Yuncheng, China, and cultivated aerobically at 37 °C in the complex medium (CM) with the following composition (g L−1): casein peptone 7.5; phosphatase inhibitor library yeast extract 10.0; soluble starch 10.0; sodium citrate 3.0; MgSO4·7H2O 20.0; KCl 2.0; FeSO4·7H2O 0.01; NaCl 120.0 and pH 7.5. The strain was identified based on typical cultural, morphological, and biochemical characteristics and 16S rRNA gene sequencing. The organism was deposited at China Center of Industrial Culture Collection

with the accession number CICC 10482. The 16S rRNA gene sequence was submitted to GenBank with the accession number HQ683738. The kinetics of bacterial growth and extracellular enzymes production were determined at different time intervals. Bacterial growth, along with enzyme activity, was measured by spectrophotometric method (Shimadzu model UV-160A). After cultivation of the strain LY20 in CM broth for 60 h, cell-free supernatant was harvested by centrifugation at 12 000 g for 15 min at 4 °C and used for enzyme purification. Ammonium sulfate was added to the supernatant

up to 75% concentration with continuous overnight stirring. The precipitate collected by centrifugation (12 000 g for 25 min) was dissolved in a minimum volume of buffer A (20 mM Tris–HCl containing 10% NaCl, pH 10.0) and Ceramide glucosyltransferase dialyzed against the same buffer overnight. The concentrated sample was loaded on a Q-Sepharose HP column (1.6 × 14 cm) pre-equilibrated with buffer A. Bound proteins were eluted by applying a linear gradient of 0.1–0.8 M NaCl. Fractions containing amylase and protease activity were pooled and concentrated by freeze-drying, respectively. Each resulting concentrate was dissolved in a minimal volume of buffer B (50 mM glycine–NaOH containing 10% NaCl, pH 10.0) and then loaded on a Sephacryl S-200 column (1.6 × 60 cm). The samples were eluted with buffer B at a flow rate of 0.5 mL min−1 (2 mL per fraction). Active fractions containing the extracellular amylase and protease were pooled and used for further analysis.

Second, we evaluated the stimulus-independent hemispheric balance

Second, we evaluated the stimulus-independent hemispheric balance thought to indicate higher level cortical processing. The results dissociate three, partly overlapping, time intervals: Z-VAD-FMK manufacturer the P1m (45–85 ms) was evoked by missed and detected target tones alike. Subsequent negative activity was only observed when listeners indicated awareness of the target stream inside the multi-tone masker. In the N1m time interval (75–175 ms), hemispheric balance of the ARN and N1m was modulated by stimulus lateralization. In the subsequent time interval (175–275 ms), auditory-cortex activity was generally right-lateralized in silence and balanced under informational masking, but was not modulated by

stimulus lateralization.

These results suggest that the PLX3397 mouse same auditory-cortex activity that varies with perceptual awareness also shows sensory response features. This is in accordance with models for visual perception, suggesting that sensory competition determines whether midlevel visual responses occur automatically or vary with perceptual state. “
“High-fat diet (HFD) consumption has been demonstrated to cause peripheral and neuronal insulin resistance, and brain mitochondrial dysfunction in rats. Although the dipeptidyl peptidase-4 inhibitor, vildagliptin, is known to improve peripheral insulin sensitivity, its effects on neuronal insulin resistance and brain mitochondrial dysfunction caused by a HFD are unknown. We tested the hypothesis that vildagliptin prevents neuronal insulin resistance, brain mitochondrial dysfunction, learning and memory deficit caused by HFD. Male rats were divided into two groups to receive either a HFD or normal diet (ND) for 12 weeks, after which rats in each group were fed with either

vildagliptin (3 mg/kg/day) or vehicle for 21 days. The cognitive function was tested by the Morris Water Maze prior to brain removal for studying neuronal insulin receptor (IR) and brain mitochondrial function. In HFD rats, neuronal insulin resistance and brain mitochondrial dysfunction were demonstrated, with impaired learning and memory. Vildagliptin prevented neuronal insulin resistance by restoring insulin-induced long-term Thalidomide depression and neuronal IR phosphorylation, IRS-1 phosphorylation and Akt/PKB-ser phosphorylation. It also improved brain mitochondrial dysfunction and cognitive function. Vildagliptin effectively restored neuronal IR function, increased glucagon-like-peptide 1 levels and prevented brain mitochondrial dysfunction, thus attenuating the impaired cognitive function caused by HFD. “
“Patent Examination Cooperation Center of the Patent Office, SIPO, Beijing, China The presence of minichromosomes is very common in haloarchaea, but little is known about the coordination of replication between the major and minor chromosomes.

Butyrivibrio proteoclasticus is an obligately anaerobic butyrate-

Butyrivibrio proteoclasticus is an obligately anaerobic butyrate-forming, rod-shaped bacterium isolated from the rumen. Originally classified as Clostridium proteoclasticum (Attwood et al., 1996) and isolated because of its protein-degrading ability (Attwood & Reilly, 1996), it has been reclassified recently as B. proteoclasticus (Moon et al., 2008). Although it is likely that B. proteoclasticus was originally classified as the genus Fusocillus (Kemp et al., 1975; Wallace et al., 2006), these cultures could not Bax protein be resuscitated from culture

collections. In addition to protein degradation, B. proteoclasticus is able to utilize hemicellulose (xylan) as a major growth substrate (Attwood et al., 1996; Moon et al., 2008). We have recently sequenced the genome of the type strain B. proteoclasticus B316T (Kelly et al., 2010) in an TSA HDAC solubility dmso attempt to further elucidate its role in plant fibre degradation, with an aim to exploit its genome to improve ruminant

animal productivity. Analysis of the 4.4-Mb B316T genome (39 G+C%) indicates that it is composed of four separate replicons: a main chromosome, a chromid (Harrison et al., 2010) and two megaplasmids, of approximately 3.55 Mb, 302 kb, 361 kb (pCY360) and 186 kb (pCY186), respectively (Kelly et al., 2010) (Table 1). Vectors suitable for gene transfer or gene expression in Butyrivibrio species are not well developed and hence there have been few genetic studies with Butyrivibrio species. Some shuttle vectors have been generated (Ware et al., 1992; Beard et al., 1995; Kobayashi et al., 1995; Gobius et al., 2002), but, most likely due to the diverse nature of the various Butyrivibrio species (Moon et al., 2008), effective transfer

between different host strains is limited. Previous work has, however, shown that the transposon Tn916 (18.032 kb) can be introduced by conjugal transfer to rumen bacteria such as Butyrivibrio species from an Enterococcus faecalis donor (Hespell & Whitehead, 1991). The use of Tn916 offers a convenient mechanism by which foreign DNA can be introduced into Butyrivibrio species for mutagenesis studies. Moreover, previous studies from our laboratory using B. proteoclasticus have Ergoloid refined the methodology by which conjugation and transconjugant selection can be performed (Hussein et al., 2008) and used metabolomics to propose a putative gene function for Tn916 mutants (Villas-Bôas et al., 2008). In light of the unique genomic arrangement of B316T, this work aimed to determine the insertion characteristics in each of the four replicons and to investigate the use of Tn916 as a tool for generating a panel of mutants to assist with assigning gene function. Butyrivibrio proteoclasticus B316T was grown anaerobically using RGM or DM media (Hespell & Whitehead, 1991), or TYAR medium (Hussein et al., 2008).

Both patient and pharmacist participants indicated that patients

Both patient and pharmacist participants indicated that patients often asked pharmacists to expand upon, reinforce

and explain physician–patient conversations about medications, as well as to evaluate medication appropriateness and physician treatment plans. These groups also noted that patients confided in pharmacists about medication-related problems before contacting physicians. Pharmacists identified several barriers to patient counselling, including lack of knowledge about medication indications and physician treatment plans. Conclusions  Community-based pharmacists may often be presented with opportunities to address questions that can affect patient medication use. Older patients, physicians and pharmacists all value greater pharmacist participation in patient care. Suboptimal information flow between physicians and pharmacists may hinder pharmacist interactions with patients and detract from patient

Selleck cancer metabolism inhibitor medication management. Interventions to integrate pharmacists into the patient healthcare team could improve patient medication management. “
“Objective The aim was to measure patient satisfaction with the Pharmacy Specialty Immunization Clinic (PSIC), a pharmacist-run vaccination clinic. Methods OSI-744 manufacturer Patient satisfaction was measured using a non-validated instrument containing 10 items with a five-point Likert scale (strongly agree, agree, not sure, disagree and strongly disagree). Patients who were seen at the PSIC and who received at least one vaccination were eligible to take part in the patient satisfaction survey. Priority index, a method used to identify areas where limited resources can be used to maximize patient satisfaction, was calculated for the different items of the instrument to determine areas for quality improvement. This study was conducted at the Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System (VASDHS). Key findings A total of 188 (55.1%) out of 341

patients who received at least one vaccine in the PSIC completed the survey. Prior to any encounter with the PSIC, patients perceived that the VASDHS was doing a good job providing vaccinations (92.5% answered Chorioepithelioma agree or strongly agree). This perception continued when asked about overall satisfaction after receiving vaccination through the PSIC (86.9% answered agree or strongly agree). When asked about the time the pharmacist spent with the patient, nearly all answered that the pharmacist spent as much time as necessary (97.8% answered agree or strongly agree). Patient satisfaction with pharmacist counselling was equally well received and reflected good communication between patient and pharmacist (97.8% answered agree or strongly agree). In regard to pharmacist competency, 98.9% (n= 184) of patients agreed that pharmacists in the PSIC administered vaccinations appropriately.

ZurR was previously thought to be involved in listerial tolerance

ZurR was previously thought to be involved in listerial tolerance of the biological detergent bile, which affects

membrane integrity and macromolecule stability in bacterial cells (Begley et al., 2002, 2005). That study screened L. monocytogenes transposon mutants for a decreased ability to survive in bile in vitro. However, in the current study, we have shown that zurR is not necessary for L. monocytogenes to withstand the toxic effects of bile (Fig. 2b). Indeed, it appears that the clean deletion mutant of zurR is actually marginally more bile tolerant than the wild type. In contrast, a reconstructed pORI19 plasmid integration mutant (Fig. 2b) in zurR was significantly reduced in bile click here tolerance reflecting the reduced tolerance of the transposon

mutant reported previously (Begley et al., 2002). It is likely that the phenotype of the insertional mutants in bile results either from a polar effect upon downstream genes or that the mutations have led to partially functional membrane proteins that MDV3100 in vivo impact upon survival in bile. In the current study, the virulence of ΔzurR was significantly reduced in the murine model of infection (Fig. 3). The work demonstrates the importance of zinc homeostasis for in vivo viability and virulence potential in L. monocytogenes. Similarly, the metalloregulators Fur and PerR have also been shown to play subtle but significant roles in successful L. monocytogenes next infection (Rea et al., 2004). Interestingly, in Salmonella enterica and Staphylococcus aureus, deletion of zurR did not result in any attenuation of the strain (Lindsay & Foster, 2001; Campoy et al., 2002). However, the regulator is absolutely required for infection of plants by Xanthomonas species (Tang et al., 2005; Yang et al., 2007). The current study provides a platform to facilitate further work to dissect the precise components required for zinc uptake by L. monocytogenes during infection. In this study, we identified 11 genes distributed over five loci as being putatively ZurR regulated using a bioinformatic approach (Fig. 4a). Briefly, the L. monocytogenes EGDe genome (Glaser et al., 2001) was scanned

for homologs of genes that have been shown to be regulated by Zur in B. subtilis (ycdH, ycdI, yceA, yckA), E. coli (znuA, znuB, znuC), and S. aureus (mreA, mreB). Loci showing significant homology were then examined for the possession of a putative B. subtilis Zur box (TCGTAATnATTACGA) (Gaballa & Helmann, 2002) using the genome web server Listilist (http://genolist.Pasteur.fr/Listilist/). Putative zur boxes were limited to 500 bp upstream of the start codon of the identified gene (Fig. 4b). By utilizing this technique, there is a possibility that we have excluded genes regulated by zurR, which are unique to L. monocytogenes, those that are regulated in the absence of the consensus sequence and those that may be regulated indirectly by zurR. This approach identified the following L.