6), even though this ITC dose cured oral candidiasis caused by an azole-susceptible C. albicans strain (Ishibashi et al., 2007). ITC treatment did not reduce the number of viable C. albicans MML611 cells in the oral cavity significantly (Fig. 6b). In contrast, co-administration of RC21v3 with ITC significantly reduced the lesion score and the viable cell number. These results indicate

that RC21v3 acts synergistically with ITC for oral candidiasis caused by azole-resistant C. albicans. The d-octapeptide RC21 was previously shown to chemosensitize azole-resistant C. albicans strains to azole drugs in vitro (Holmes et al., 2008). We have now demonstrated that the d-octapeptide derivative RC21v3, the

active principal of RC21, functions as a chemosensitizing agent in experimental buy Docetaxel oral candidiasis in mice. Treatment of oral infections 17-AAG chemical structure caused by the azole-resistant C. albicans clinical isolate MML611 with usual therapeutic doses of FLC (0.3 and 0.5 mg kg−1 of body weight per dose) or ITC (0.16 mg kg−1 of body weight per dose) (Graybill et al., 1998; Kamai et al., 2003) was only partial effective. However, the combination treatment with 0.02 μmol per dose of RC21v3 potentiated the therapeutic performance of both FLC and ITC, despite RC21v3 having no effect by itself. The drug combinations reduced the CFU of C. albicans in the oral cavity of the infected mice and reduced their oral lesions. Urease Although the reductions in cfu were statistically significant,

there was only an approximately 10-fold reduction in cfu. In this regard, it is important to note that quantification of oral cfu by swabbing will measure only the loosely associated C. albicans cells and not those penetrating the tissue. Histological examination of the tongues revealed that the thickness of the oral candidiasis lesions was greatly reduced by combination therapy. Critically, the combination of RC21v3 with azole reduced the lesion scores to near zero. Although several studies have shown that fungal drug efflux pump inhibitors can chemosensitize azole-resistant C. albicans strains to azoles in vitro (Niimi et al., 2004; Tanabe et al., 2007; Ricardo et al., 2009), this is the first demonstration that pump inhibitors are effective in an in vivo infection model. It is known that the bioavailability of peptides can be attenuated or affected by the physicochemical environment with rapid degradation by proteinases, nonspecific binding with serum proteins, and interference by high salt concentrations. Because RC21v3 performed well in the oral cavity, we believe that RC21 is well suited to oral delivery for oral candidiasis. Applied locally rather than systemically, it will be less subject to serum-binding or interactions with salts and, as a D-peptide, it will not be susceptible to degradation by the proteinases present in the oral cavity.

The optimal timing of listing and transplantation of the HCV/HIV patient remains a challenge, and waiting list mortality appears higher than in HIV-negative patients [12]. Poor outcome might reflect late referral for transplant assessment and/or more rapid deterioration after the onset of hepatic decompensation. In either case, it is imperative that HIV-positive patients Selleckchem CH5424802 with a diagnosis of ESLD are co-managed by an experienced HIV physician and a hepatologist with close links to a transplant unit, thus permitting expeditious referral and assessment at the first sign of decompensation. 1 

Hepatitis B (chronic): Diagnosis and management of chronic hepatitis B in children, young people and adults. National Clinical Guideline Centre, 2013. Final draft for consultation. Available at www.nice.org.uk/guidance/index.jsp?action=byID&o=13299 (accessed May 2013). 2  Rosenthal E, Poiree M, Pradier C et al. Mortality due to hepatitis-C related liver disease in HIV-infected patients in France (Mortavic

2001 study). AIDS 2003; 17: 1803–1809. 3  Rosenthal E, Salmon-Céron D, Lewden C et al. for the Mortavic/Mortalité 2005 Study Group. Liver-related deaths in HIV-infected patients between 1995 and 2005 in the French GERMIVIC Joint Study Group Network (Mortavic 2005 study in collaboration with the Mortalité 2005 survey, ANRS EN19). HIV Med 2009; 10: 282–289. 4  Wandeler G, Gsponer T, Bregenzer A et al. for the Swiss HIV Cohort Study. Hepatitis C virus infections in the Swiss HIV Cohort Study: a rapidly Rapamycin in vitro evolving epidemic. Clin Infect Dis 2012; 55: 1408–1416. 5  Piroth L, Pol S, Lacombe K et al. Management and treatment of chronic hepatitis B virus infection in HIV positive and negative patients: the EPIB 2008 study. J Hepatol 2010; 53: 1006–1012. 6  Joshi D, O’Grady J, Dieterich

D, Gazzard B, Agarwal Acetophenone K. Increasing burden of liver disease in patients with HIV infection. Lancet 2011; 377 (9772): 1198–1209. 7  Falade-Nwulia O, Seaberg EC, Rinaldo CR, Badri S, Witt M, Thio CL. Comparative risk of liver-related mortality from chronic hepatitis B versus chronic hepatitis C virus infection. Clin Infect Dis 2012; 55: 507–513. 8  Macias J, Berenguer J, Japon M et al. Fast fibrosis progression between repeated liver biopsies in patients coinfected with human immunodeficiency virus/hepatitis C virus. Hepatology 2009; 50: 1056–1063. 9  Merchante N, Giron-Gonzalez J, Gonzalez-Serrano M et al. Survival and prognostic factors of HIV-infected patients with HCV-related end stage liver disease. AIDS 2006; 20: 49–57. 10  Fierer DS, Dieterich DT, Fiel MI et al. Rapid progression to decompensated cirrhosis, liver transplant, and death in HIV-infected men after primary hepatitis C virus infection.

1 M Tris-HCl-EDTA and Triton-X100 buffer at pH 8.0 (Goldenberger et al., 1995). All PCR reactions were performed with 1 μL (approximately 5–20 ng) of extracted DNA, 1 μM of each primer, 12.5 μL 2 × PCR Master

Mix (Fermentas, Le Mont-sur-Lausanne, Switzerland), and distilled DNase-free H2O (Fermentas) to a final volume of 25 μL. Oligonucleotides were obtained from Microsynth (Balgach, Switzerland). The PCR assay was performed in a Biometra® TGradient Cycler (Biolabo, Châtel-St-Denis, Switzerland) according to the following protocol: initial denaturation at 95 °C for 3 min followed by 35 cycles of 30 s denaturation at 95 °C, 30 s annealing at 62 °C, and 60 s replication at 72 °C. A final replication

was performed at 72 °C for 7 min. The reaction was subsequently cooled to 4 °C selleckchem until analysis. Successful PCR products were purified using the GFX DNA purification kit (GE Healthcare Europe, Glattbrugg, Switzerland). Restriction enzymes for the RFLP assay were obtained from New England Biolabs (NEB, Ipswich, MA) and used according to specifications. Reaction volumes and purified PCR products were adjusted to a final volume of 11.5 μL per reaction and digested at 37 °C for 2 h. Enzymes were used at a final concentration of 2 and 3 U μL−1 for XbaI and MseI, respectively. Restriction digestions were performed separately for XbaI and MseI on aliquots of the original purified PCR product. Amplified DNA and RFLP Epigenetic inhibitor products were analyzed by 1% and 2% agarose gel electrophoresis (Euroclone, Milan, Italy), respectively.

DNA fragments were visualized with ethidium bromide staining (2.5 mg L−1). A 100-bp TriDye DNA standard (BioConcept, Allschwil, Switzerland) was used as DNA size marker. The identification of all SBSEC reference strains (Table 1) as well as 192 S. infantarius and five S. gallolyticus isolates was successfully performed using the multiplex PCR/RFLP assay developed in this study. The specificity of the multiplex PCR assay was confirmed with various streptococcal selleck kinase inhibitor species closely related to the SBSEC as well as other LAB often present in raw milk products (Table 1). The PCR assay yielded the desired 1.1-kb fragment only with DNA of SBSEC strains corresponding to the expected product of 1119–1120 bp (Fig. 3a). It did not yield false-positive amplification of non-SBSEC reference strains or dairy isolates of closely related species commonly detected in raw milk products, such as enterococci, lactococci, and other streptococci. Especially, S. agalactiae (group B streptococci) and group C streptococci regularly detected from milk of mastitic animals (Younan & Bornstein, 2007; Whiley & Hardie, 2009; Jans, 2011) were in silico evaluated to yield a potentially false-positive result when using other assays such as the 324-fold degenerate groESL primers (Chen et al., 2008).

Differences between treatment groups with 95% CIs at each time-point were summarized using Student’s t-test. Overall differences between the two treatment groups were evaluated using a linear mixed model (PROC MIXED, SAS 9.1, SAS Institute Inc., Cary, NC). As a sensitivity analysis we also conducted a regular on-treatment analysis censoring patients when they stopped any of the assigned drugs, and sensitivity analyses censoring patients from the date they received systemic steroids or bisphosphonates. Baseline age, body mass index (BMI), CD4 cell count, current smoking, gender, baseline BMD and treatment arm were evaluated as predictors of BMD loss during the first

24 weeks using univariate and multivariate linear regression. We conducted separate analyses for hip and spine BMD. Baseline age, gender, BMI, CD4 cell count and current smoking were also evaluated for associations with KU-60019 mw baseline spine and hip BMD. We used spss software (Norusis; SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL) and sas 9.1 (SAS Institute Inc., Cary, NC) for statistical analyses. Of the 104 randomized patients in the SPAR study, 63 participated in the BMD substudy. Fifty-nine patients (29 in the NRTI-sparing group and 30 in the PI-sparing group)

had at least one follow-up BMD measurement and were included in the present study. The majority were men (90%) and Caucasian (93%). Baseline median CD4 count was 190 cells/μL, median viral load was 197 000 HIV-1 RNA copies/ml, median age was 42 years and median BMI was 21.9. At baseline, median spine BMD was 1.09 g/cm2 and median hip BMD was 0.91 g/cm2. Thirty-three patients (55.9%) had a low BMD (T-score buy BEZ235 <−1.0) and of these eight had DEXA-defined osteoporosis. Baseline characteristics with IQRs according to treatment group are displayed in Table 1. A large proportion of patients switched part of the randomized treatment during the study period, but 44 (74.6%), 37 (67.3%), 28 (54.9%) and 22 patients (48.9%) were still on randomized triclocarban treatment at weeks 24, 48, 96 and 144, respectively. There were no differences between time to discontinuation of randomized

treatment between the two groups (P=0.76). A number of patients switched to a new drug within the same drug class and 51 (86.4%), 46 (83.6%), 38 (74.5) and 31 (68.9%) were still in the assigned drug class-sparing arm at weeks 24, 48, 96 and 144, respectively. Significantly more patients in the NRTI-sparing arm changed drug class (P=0.005). Four patients received systemic steroids during the study period and one patient in the NRTI-sparing arm received bisphosphonate treatment from week 72. The changes compared with baseline in spine and hip BMD in ITT analyses are displayed in Figures 1 and 2. Spine BMD declined in both arms until week 24, and thereafter BMD stabilized. Femoral neck BMD declined in both arms until week 48 and stabilized thereafter. There was no significant difference between the two treatment arms (P=0.7 for spine and P=0.3 for femoral neck).

coli than S. flexneri strains (Fig. 2a). The presence of the LEE operon and stcE suggested that the atypical Shigella B13 strains might form pedestals on host cells. We tested this hypothesis by infecting HEp-2 cells and observing for co-localization of bacteria with actin bundles on the surface of cells. Pedestal formation on HEp-2 cells could be detected for atypical Shigella B13 strains 3556-77, 3052-94, and 3053-94, but not 3557-77 (Fig. 2b). In this study,

we discovered the stcE gene in the atypical Shigella B13 cluster. The relatively low incidence of three nucleotide substitutions within the 2.7-kb stcE gene compared to the six nucleotide substitutions within 220 nucleotides of the upstream intergenic region suggests selection for the preservation of StcE function. The acquisition of the large plasmid carrying stcE and the etp operon, in combination with the LEE element Buparlisib supplier encoded on the chromosome, may provide a selective advantage by increasing the level of intimate adherence to host cells. A role of StcE in intimate adherence is further supported by the observation that a lack of extracellular StcE coincides with the absence of pedestal formation by strain 3557-77. The current model of Shigella evolution proposes that multiple

ancestral E. coli clones acquired RG7204 cell line the pINV Shigella invasion plasmid, leading to selection for the loss of traits such as motility and lysine decarboxylation (Pupo et al., 2000). In contrast, the atypical Shigella B13 strains show loss of E. coli traits in the apparent absence of pINV selective forces. Furthermore, strains 3556-77 and 3557-77 display metabolic phenotypes intermediate between Shigella and E. coli, and atypical Shigella B13 DNA is more similar to E.  coli than other Shigella B13 strains based on DNA–DNA hybridization assays (Brenner et al., 1982). These atypical Shigella B13 strains also form a distinct phylogenetic cluster and possess TCL intermediate chromosomal genotypes between E. coli and Shigella groups (Hyma et al., 2005). As was previously suggested by Hyma et al., these data indicate that the atypical Shigella B13 strains were misclassified as Shigella and that they actually

represent a lineage that evolved from ancestral forms of Shigella and attaching and effacing E. coli. The data presented here strengthen this argument by showing the acquisition of LEE and a pO157-like plasmid encoding stcE, which we suggest recapitulates the model of EHEC evolution, described as the step-wise acquisition of the LEE element, followed by pO157 and then the Shiga toxin phage (Reid et al., 2000). We therefore propose to reclassify the atypical Shigella B13 strains as an E. coli group that, through convergent evolution or horizontal transfer of virulence genes on an ancestral background that shared both E. coli and Shigella characteristics, has evolved to closely resemble pathotypes of E. coli that form attaching and effacing lesions.

5 ms. Electric shocks were administered by a Grass Instruments S-88 dual-channel square-pulse stimulator with an Isolation Unit SIU7 (all by Grass Instrument Division, Astro-Med Inc., West Warwick, RI, USA). The electrodes were placed on the radial side of the most distal phalanges of the left and right index fingers. Individual shock strength threshold determination was performed before conditioning and, to account for habituation effects, after half

of the total number of 80 shock presentations, separately for shocks administered to the left and right hands. Participants selleck screening library were asked to rate their sensation of shock intensity on a six-point scale ranging from one (‘not perceptible at all’) to six (‘painful’). Current levels started off at 1 mA and were gradually increased until a subjective rating of five was reached; this corresponded to an ‘unpleasant but

not painful’ sensation from the shock. The mean UCS intensity level was 5.02 ± 3.52 mA. Differential emotional significance was assigned to the click-like tones by means of MultiCS conditioning (Bröckelmann et al., 2011; Steinberg et al., 2012b). Affective conditioning selleck chemical paradigms typically involve one neutral stimulus (CS) that becomes associated with a UCS after repeated contingent CS–UCS pairings and acquires the power to elicit the CR previously evoked by UCS presentation alone (e.g., Quirk et al., 1995; Dolan et al., 2006; Stolarova et al., 2006; Keil et al., 2007; Moses et al., 2010; Kluge et al., 2011). MultiCS conditioning extends this classical approach by assigning behavioural Thalidomide relevance to multiple CS per affective category and with only few contingent CS–UCS pairings. This procedure therefore challenges the brain’s capacity to process emotional stimuli in terms of speed and resolving power. In addition, for investigations

with time-sensitive neurophysiological measures such as MEG or EEG, the procedure provides a sufficiently high number of trials within each experimental condition assuring good signal-to-noise ratio for data analysis while every single stimulus is repeated only a few times, reducing extinction of the acquired emotional meaning due to repeated non-reinforced CS presentations after conditioning (Rogan et al., 1997). Upon arrival in the laboratory, participants were informed about the experimental procedure and the electric shock administration, and gave written informed consent to the protocol. The affective associative learning procedure in the MEG comprised one pre-conditioning MEG measurement, two interspersed conditioning sessions and one post-conditioning MEG measurement (Fig. 1), as well as three behavioural tasks administered after MEG data acquisition.

Once participants were aware of these services, they seemed to be accepting of them. However, future publicity campaigns should be designed in a way that addresses any misconceptions about professionalism and commercial issues. More research is needed using focus groups drawn from

a broader demography to inform quantitative studies in order to establish whether or not these views are common to the wider population of the UK. Linda Dodds Medicines Use and Safety Division, IDH inhibitor East and South East England Specialist Pharmacy Services, Kent, UK RPS guidance sets out the key information about medicines that should be shared at transfer of care Audit across 45 hospital sites indicated that only 32% of 2071 prescriptions were legible and unambiguous before pharmacy amendments Pharmacists can ensure prescription accuracy but are less able to add information related to changes to medicines It is well recognised that errors in transfer of medicines information across care settings can result in adverse events.1 In June 2012 the RPS published guidance selleck kinase inhibitor to underpin the safe transfer of medicines information when patients move between care settings.1 A collaborative audit was proposed by the Medicines Use and Safety Division (MUSD) using standards taken from the RPS document (see Table 1). A small steering group of clinical pharmacy managers met

with the MUSD to agree methodology and pilot the audit protocol. Trusts were invited to collect data in November 2012. Data collection was supported by a paper form to be used on wards and in dispensary areas. This information was then transferred to an electronic spreadsheet and returned to MUSD. The MUSD team processed the data submitted by each trust and fed back to each participant a summary of their own results for local use. The data were then collated into a master spreadsheet and analysed against the agreed audit standards. ROS1 2071 discharge prescriptions from 45 organisations were audited (1904 from acute trusts; 89 from community health services; 78 from mental health services). The average number of items per prescription

was 6.7. Pharmacists made 2880 contributions towards correcting or enhancing the accuracy of 1398 prescriptions (an average of 1.5 contributions per prescription overall). Pharmacy contributions were coded into 13 different categories and used to define and calculate a proxy measure for each standard relating to the prescription details. The average time to clinically screen a discharge prescription was 8.7 minutes, and to resolve identified problems 8.2 minutes. Table 1: Adherence to audit standards (2071 prescriptions audited) Standard (all 100%) Level achieved * Comment *Before pharmacy contributions to the prescription The majority of pharmacy contributions to discharge prescriptions focused on ensuring the prescription details were correct.

5, E11.5 and E12.5, respectively (Fig. 1D). Thus, Purkinje cells were more specifically transfected when IUE was performed at earlier time points (P < 0.05 for E10.5 vs. E11.5, P < 0.0001 for E11.5 vs. E12.5 and E12.5 vs. E10.5, χ2 test with Bonferroni correction). These results indicate that when IUE was performed in a spatially directed manner by adjusting the position of the electrode and optimizing the orientation of the electrical field

at E10.5–E12.5, exogenous genes could be efficiently and preferentially introduced into Purkinje cells in vivo. We occasionally observed a small number of EGFP-positive, calbindin-negative neurons in the granular layer that morphologically corresponded to Golgi cells (Fig. S2A). Golgi cells and Purkinje cells arise Palbociclib from the ventricular zone at distinct but overlapping developmental stages in mice (Miale & Sidman,

1961; Wang & Zoghbi, 2001; Hashimoto & Mikoshiba, 2003). On very rare occasions, we observed EGFP-positive puncta in the granular layer of cerebella that underwent IUE at E12.5 (Fig. S2B and a). These puncta were immunopositive for a neuronal marker, neurofilament (Fig. S2B and b), negative for Nissl staining (Fig. S2B and c), LBH589 immunonegative for a glial marker, GFAP (Fig. S2B and d), and immunopositive for vesicular glutamate transporter 1, a marker for glutamatergic nerve terminals (Fig. S2B and e). These results indicate that, depending on subtle differences in the diagonal angle of the electrodes, plasmids could also be incorporated into precerebellar nuclei neurons, which are generated in the caudal rhombic lip at around E12.5, which expressed EGFP in mossy fibers. In addition, we observed a small number of EGFP-positive neurons in the deep cerebellar nucleus (Fig. S3A), which are produced in the rostal rhombic lip around

E11.5 (Miale & Sidman, 1961). Outside the cerebellum, we occasionally observed EGFP-positive cells in the parabrachial nucleus and dorsal cochlear nucleus (Fig. 3D and S3B), which are produced in the caudal rhombic lip between E10 and 12.5 (Wang, 2005, Pierce, 1967). As EGFP positive cells in the dorsal cochlear nucleus were immunopositive for carbonic anhydrase related protein 8 (Fig. S3B), they probably correspond to cartwheel cells in the dorsal cochlear nucleus. Nevertheless, in all cases in which the spatially directed IUE was carried out at E11.5, the vast majority of transfected Thiamet G cells were calbindin-positive Purkinje cells. Purkinje cells are particularly vulnerable cerebellar neurons (Slemmer et al., 2005). Thus, to ensure that the repetitive voltage pulses during IUE (De Vry et al., 2010) did not alter the developmental profile and physiological characteristics of the Purkinje cells, we performed IUE at E11.5 and examined the functional properties of the Purkinje cells at P25–P28. Confocal microscopy of fixed parasagittal sections of the vermis showed that the electroporated Purkinje cells appeared grossly normal, with elaborate dendrites and spines (Fig.

The aim of this study was to address this putative underdiagnosis of clinical CHIKV infection in Dutch travelers to the Indian Ocean region by retrospective screening Lumacaftor solubility dmso of sera of patients for which requested DENV serology was negative in the period 2007 to 2010. In addition, the trends

in diagnostic requests for CHIKV and DENV infections related to travel to the Indian Ocean area were analyzed. The sera were tested in serial (two-step) dilutions using a commercial indirect immunofluorescence assay (IFA, Euroimmun, Lübeck, Germany) for IgG and IgM anti-CHIKV. This IFA was proven to be suitable in outbreaks of both A226 and A226V envelope protein E1 variants of East, Central, and South African genotype CHIKV, both known to have replaced the Asian CHIKV genotype in India and Southeast Asia and responsible

for the Indian Ocean area outbreaks.[5, 6] Because background reactivity was observed in a high proportion of serum samples of non-travelers in dilutions up to 1 : 40 to 1 : 80 (data not shown), serum samples with a positive signal at dilution 1 : 128 or Metformin price higher were considered to be positive. For serum samples that were reactive at dilution 1 : 64, repeat sampling was requested. Given the rather high proportion of samples with some nonspecific background reactivity, sera testing positive were analyzed for independent confirmation of the results using a virus neutralization test with vital staining (NT)[7] using CV-1 cells and the

prototype East, Central, and South African lineage CHIKV strain S27-African. The different CHIKV lineages and strains are known to cross-neutralize.[6] In addition, sera were analyzed for the presence of CHIKV RNA using a TaqMan reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (PCR; Roche Diagnostics, Almere, The Netherlands) as described in Ref. [8]. PCR and NT were only performed when volume of remaining serum was sufficient. second We selected serum samples from unique patients that had been submitted for diagnosis of DENV infection in 2007 to 2010 (n = 948) and for whom minimal background data had been provided including travel destination (n = 348, 36.7%). From this group, we selected the patients who had traveled to the Indian Ocean region (n = 158). To this goal, all countries with a coastline on the Indian Ocean were included. Subsequently, patients with positive DENV serology (IgM and/or IgG; n = 41, 25.9%) or inconclusive DENV serology (a-specific reaction, n = 5) were excluded. Of the remaining 112 patients, sera of 107 patients were available for CHIKV serology. A total of 107 sera from travelers returning from destinations in the Indian Ocean area, showing clinical symptoms corresponding to a DENV infection but with negative DENV serology, were analyzed for the presence of CHIKV IgM and IgG.

3) has an important ecological implication and deserves special attention. This is the only organism known so far that is capable of such a function under soda-saturated conditions among sulfidogens from soda lakes. Although the

pathway of acetate utilization needs to be studied in detail, one of the possibilities is that it might be used by reversing the acetogenic Wood cycle. A test for the ability of the type species N. acetigena to grow by sulfur respiration either organotrophically with EtOH or lactate or lithotrophically with H2 and formate yielded negative results. Thus, significant physiological differences within a single phylotype highlight the necessity of combining molecular ecology with the isolation and physiological selleck screening library investigation of pure cultures in order to understand the function of microbial communities. In other words, multiple closely related phylotypes detected using a culture-independent

approach may correspond to physiological diversification and, therefore, both aspects need to be studied in parallel. A recent example of such a trait has been revealed by an extensive polyphasic analysis of two extremely halophilic members of Salinibacter ruber (Peña et al., 2010). Fermentative members of the order Halanaerobiales dominate the anaerobic bacterial community under hypersaline conditions due to their relatively ‘cheap’ K+-based osmoadaptation strategy (Oren, 1999, 2011). According to the hypothesis of A. Oren, in prokaryotes, there is a direct correlation between the energy yield of catabolism and the ability NVP-BKM120 molecular weight to grow at high salinity. Because the inorganic osmolyte strategy based on potassium import needs much less energy input than de novo synthesis of organic osmolytes, it confers an advantage to such organisms to exploit low energy yield catabolic reactions at extreme salinity. On the basis of the work presented here and also based on other recently published results, it seems that some members of the order Haloanaerobiales use an energy metabolism that has until now been considered rather uncharacteristic for this group. In the absence

of more Calpain specialized extremely halophilic dissimilatory sulfur-dissimilatory respirers, these organisms are able to perform anaerobic respiration in addition to or even instead of fermentation. Such examples are represented by the extremely halophilic Selenihalanaerobacter shriftii (Switzer-Blum et al., 2001), the recently described extremely haloalkaliphilic arsenate- and sulfur-reducing Halarsenatibacter silvermanii (Switzer-Blum et al., 2009) and the Natroniella strains AHT3, AHT4 and AHT18, described here. The latter, however, advanced further in their specialization by adopting a lithoautotrophic lifestyle. Both possibilities (autotrophy and respiratory catabolism) are basically present in some of the nonextremophilic acetogens.