Benign neonatal hemangiomatosis with aggressive growth of cutaneous lesions

A patient experienced rapidly proliferating, multiple cutaneous hemangiomas subject to significant hemorrhage, with associated asymptomatic pulmonary involvement. The dramatic features of his cutaneous disease, an overview of the spectrum of neonatal hemangiomatosis, and recent therapeutic options are reviewed.

The herpes simplex virus type 1 alkaline nuclease is not essential for viral DNA synthesis: isolation and characterization of a lacZ insertion mutant

Herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) encodes a novel enzyme activity, the alkaline nuclease, whose precise role in the viral replication cycle remains obscure. The alkaline nuclease gene corresponds to the UL12 open reading frame, which is predicted to encode a protein of 626 amino acid residues. We describe the isolation and characterization of a null mutant of the gene for the viral alkaline nuclease in which 917 bp from the N-terminal half of the gene (corresponding to residues 70 to 375) were deleted and replaced by the insertional mutagen ICP6::lacZ. The resulting mutant virus, AN-1, was propagated in helper cells (S22) which express the wild-type version of the alkaline nuclease gene. Mutant AN-1 growth in Vero cells is severely restricted, although small amounts of infectious virus are produced. On the other hand, wild-type levels of viral DNA and late viral proteins are expressed in virus AN-1-infected Vero cells. These results indicate that the HSV-1 alkaline nuclease gene product is not essential for viral DNA synthesis but may play a role in the processing or packaging of viral DNA into infectious virions. Possible roles in the viral infectious cycle will be discussed.

High frequency of antimicrobial resistance in human fecal flora

The frequency of resistance to seven different antimicrobial agents was examined in the aerobic gram-negative gut flora of over 600 individuals from hospitals, from laboratories where antibiotics were used, and from urban and rural communities. In a majority (62.5%) of fecal samples from people without a recent history of taking antibiotics, 10% or more of the total organisms were resistant to at least one of the antibiotics. In about 40% of the samples, resistance to more than one drug was present at this level. More than one-third of the samples contained resistant organisms comprising 50% or more of the total flora examined. Organisms with coresistance to multiple drugs were found frequently. Individuals taking antibiotics produced more samples with a higher proportion (greater than 50%) of resistant bacteria, and these samples also had a significantly greater number of different resistance determinants. This extensive study revealed a high prevalence of resistant bacteria in the gut flora of ambulatory and hospitalized individuals whether or not they were taking antibiotics.