, 2011a, b). This approach can be expanded in the future by testing probiotics for their ability to inhibit the growth of organisms normally found in the flora that have high activities of enzymes such as β-glucuronidase CAL-101 in vivo (Reddy, 1999), nitroreductase, azoreductase, and β-glycosidase or the capability for nitrosation. The sixth most commonly diagnosed cancer in the world is hepatitis B virus. Consumption of foods, contaminated with aflatoxins, is also established causes of liver cancer. Aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) causes characteristic genetic changes in the p53 tumor suppressor

gene and ras protooncogenes. Some probiotic bacterial strains have been successfully shown to bind and neutralize AFB1 in vivo and thus Sirolimus in vivo reduce the bioabsorption of the toxin from the gut (Haskard et al., 2000; Kumar et al., 2011a, b). Addition of probiotic Bifidobacterium longum to the diet of rats has been shown to exert a strong antitumor activity on colonic mucosa by reducing the expression level of ras-p21 expression and cell proliferation (Reddy, 1998). Lactobacillus GG administration determined the up- and downregulation

of 334 and 92 genes, respectively, by affecting the expression of genes involved in immune response and inflammation [transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-β) and tumor necrosis factor (TNF) family members, cytokines, nitric oxide synthase 1, defensin alpha-1], apoptosis, cell growth and cell differentiation (cyclins and caspases, oncogenes), cell–cell signaling (intracellular adhesion molecules and integrins), cell adhesion (cadherins), signal transcription and transduction (Caro et al.,

2005). Probiotics have also been found by several researchers to decrease fecal concentrations of enzymes (glycosidase, B-glucuronidase, azoreductase, and nitroreductase) and secondary bile salts and reduce the absorption of harmful mutagens that may contribute to colon carcinogenesis (Rafter, 1995). Normal intestinal flora can influence carcinogenesis L-NAME HCl by producing enzymes (glycosidase, B-glucuronidase, azoreductase, and nitroreductase) that transform precarcinogens into active carcinogens (Goldin, 1990; Pedrosa et al., 1995). Lactobacillus acidophilus and L. casei supplementation in humans helped to decrease the levels of these enzymes (Lidbeck et al., 1991). In mice, these bacterial enzymes were suppressed with the administration of Lactobacillus GG (Drisko et al., 2003). Several mechanisms have been proposed as to how lactic acid bacteria may inhibit colon cancer, which includes enhancing the host’s immune response, altering the metabolic activity of the intestinal microbial communities, binding and degrading carcinogens, producing antimutagenic compounds, and altering the physiochemical conditions in the colon (Hirayama & Rafter, 2000; Kumar et al., 2011a, b).

Percentage of patients who confirm they have been given the opportunity to be involved in making decisions about their treatment. Patients should be given the opportunity to be involved in making decisions about their treatment [1]. Studies show that trust, a good-quality relationship and good communication skills between doctor and patient are associated with better adherence and treatment outcomes in HIV and in other disease areas [2-6]. Studies have shown that patient beliefs about

the necessity, efficacy and side effects of ART, the practicability of taking it, and beliefs about their ability to adhere to therapy, all affect adherence [7-9]. Before prescribing ART (treatment initiation or switching), clinicians should assess: Patients’ readiness to take therapy. Their knowledge of its BGJ398 purchase mode PF-562271 in vitro of action and efficacy, and perceptions of their personal need for ART. Concerns about taking ART or specific ARV drugs, including potential adverse effects. Concerns with possible adverse social consequences, such as disclosure or interference with lifestyle. Their confidence that they will be able to adhere to the medication (self-efficacy); Psychological or NC issues that could impact on adherence; Socio-economic factors that could impact

on adherence, including, but not limited to, poverty, housing, immigration status or domestic violence. Community advocacy and peer support are helpful in supporting a patient’s understanding and confidence around treatments and help the patient’s readiness and decision to start therapy. Community organizations in the UK have been instrumental in providing a range of patient-information resources and peer-support services, including published and web-based information materials, telephone advice lines, treatment advocates and peer-support groups, working in collaboration with healthcare professionals. They are an important and essential adjunct to clinic-based

services and are helpful in addressing the issues discussed below. A number of patient factors may affect adherence, adverse effects and treatment outcomes. Depression is significantly associated with low adherence [10, 11] and some studies report an independent association between depression and mortality in people with HIV [12]. tuclazepam Adherence can be improved by treating depression [13], so all patients should be screened for depression before starting therapy, using simple screening tools such as the Arroll two-question quick screen [14]. Patients should also be screened for anxiety and for cognitive impairment. Current problematic alcohol and recreational drug use are also associated with low adherence [15-17], although a history of injecting drug use, or even active use, is not necessarily so [18]. Patients should be asked about alcohol and recreational drug use and offered support to moderate or manage it if desired.

This strategy can be easily integrated into existing clinical routines, and has fewer visible costs than professional agency interpreters, such as those used in Geneva. However, there are invisible costs involved with removing a staff member from one role to fulfill another16 and to ensure the quality of their interpreting it is important Selleckchem BIRB 796 to train and assess bilingual staff just as for professional interpreters.20–22 Indirect pressures

from hospital administration to minimize the use of professional interpreters and give priority to no-cost solutions such as family members and bilingual staff are a further disincentive to using professional interpreters. Such messages may in part explain why our respondents seem to think that ad hoc interpreters are “good enough”. 91.2% of respondents thought that interpreting provided by bilingual staff was satisfactory or good, and 79.5% thought that interpreting provided by family/friends was satisfactory or good. A lack of awareness of the impact of language barriers on quality of care and of the dangers of ad hoc interpreting may also lead to uncritical acceptance of lower quality interpreting. In addition, the heterogeneous training and experience of professional interpreters in our setting, and the lack of clear standards for recruitment and evaluation,

means that professional interpreters may not always provide higher quality DAPT purchase interpreting than ad hoc Megestrol Acetate interpreters. The fact that 58.5% of our respondents rated interpreting by professional interpreters as less than excellent may be a reflection of the variable interpreting quality

in our setting. Our study has a number of limitations. First, it was carried out in only one hospital system in one Swiss city, and therefore results may not be generalizable to other settings. Second, we had a 34% non-response rate, with no data on non-responders, and therefore cannot say to what degree our results reflect non-response bias. Our questionnaire items were not validated, and our data did not allow for multivariable analyses of factors associated with use of professional interpreters. Finally, our data did not allow us to examine the reasons that some services continue to use children as ad-hoc interpreters, a worrisome practice identified in a number of studies2,23,24. Despite these study weaknesses, our results suggests that simply making professional interpreter services available to health care professionals is not enough to ensure their systematic use for LFP patients. In the United States, the existence of Federal requirements related to the provision of culturally and linguistically appropriate services has been an important catalyst for change in this area.

We also addressed the safety and tolerability of etravirine-based therapy in these patients. We performed a multicentre retrospective study of 23 vertically infected children (5–12 years old) and adolescents (13–18 years old) receiving highly active antiretroviral this website therapy who were enrolled in the Spanish HIV Paediatric Cohort. All except one NNRTI-naïve adolescent had documented genotypic evidence of resistance to NNRTIs and had begun etravirine-based therapy under

the Spanish compassionate use programme. Weight-adjusted doses of 5.2 mg/kg twice daily [7] following a meal and 200 mg twice daily were administered to children and adolescents, respectively. Backbone regimens including nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTIs) and a boosted protease inhibitor, with or without newer agents (raltegravir, maraviroc and/or enfuvirtide), were prescribed. When available, plasma samples were analysed using Trofile® (Monogram Biosciences, San Francisco, CA, USA). Adherence to antiretrovirals (expressed as a percentage) was evaluated by paediatricians who assessed the dose taken by interviewing parents/guardians. Genotypic susceptibility was determined Nutlin-3a nmr using the Stanford Resistance Database [8] based on a scoring system: 0–9, total

response to antiretrovirals; 10–14, potential low-level drug resistance; 15–29, low-level drug resistance; 30–59, degree of drug resistance greater than low-level resistance but lower than high-level resistance; and ≥60, little or no virological response to treatment. Visits were scheduled every 3 months according to international guidelines. Demographic data and clinical and laboratory parameters were recorded longitudinally. The Ethics Committees of the participating hospitals approved cAMP the study and parents and guardians gave their informed consent. Several biological samples were provided by the Spanish HIV BioBank of the Spanish AIDS Research Network [9]. Values were recorded as absolute numbers/percentages, and medians were calculated with

their interquartile ranges (IQRs). The statistical analysis was performed using spss (version 15) (SPSS, Chicago, IL, USA). Between 1 September 2007 and 28 February 2010, we enrolled 23 vertically infected patients born between 1989 and 2002 and treated at six Spanish hospitals (see Appendix). All patients fulfilled the inclusion criteria. Five were children (22%) and 18 (78%) were adolescents. Their median age was 14.2 years (IQR 12.5–15.8 years). Most patients were Caucasian (n=19; 83%) with the HIV B subtype (n=16; 70%) (Table 1). The patient from sub-Saharan Africa harboured a non-B subtype. Only one patient was vertically coinfected with the hepatitis C virus. The baseline median plasma HIV-1 RNA level was 29 000 (4.5 log10) HIV-1 RNA copies/mL, with a range from 4300 to 83 000 copies/mL. The median CD4 T-cell count was 445 cells/μL (range 221–655 cells/μL) and the median CD4 percentage was 19.6% (IQR 13.0-31.

Gleisner, F. Ibrahim and L. Campbell); Mortimer Market Centre, London (R. Gilson, N. Brima and I. Williams); North Middlesex University Hospital NHS Trust, London (A. Schwenk, J. Ainsworth, C. Wood and S. Miller); Royal Free NHS Trust and UCL Medical selleck chemical School, London (M. Johnson, M. Youle, F. Lampe, C. Smith, H. Grabowska, C. Chaloner and D. Puradiredja); St Mary’s Hospital, London (J. Walsh, J. Weber, F. Ramzan, N. Mackie and A. Winston); The Lothian University Hospitals NHS Trust, Edinburgh

(C. Leen and A. Wilson); North Bristol NHS Trust (M. Gompels and S. Allan); University of Leicester NHS Trust (A. Palfreeman and A. Moore); South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (D. Chadwick and K. Wakeman). “
“Pregnancy may alter protein binding (PB) of highly bound protease inhibitors due to changes in plasma concentrations of albumin and α-1 acid glycoprotein (AAG). Small changes in PB can greatly impact the fraction of drug unbound (FU) exerting pharmacological effect. We report lopinavir (LPV) PB during third trimester (antepartum, AP) compared to ≥1.7 weeks postpartum (PP) to determine MAPK inhibitor if FU changes compensate for reduced total concentrations reported previously. P1026s enrolled women receiving LPV/ritonavir, soft gel capsules 400/100 mg or 533/133 mg twice daily. LPV FU, albumin and AAG were determined AP and PP. AP/PP

samples were available from 29/25 women respectively with all but one woman receiving the same dose AP/PP. LPV FU was increased 18% AP vs. PP (mean 0.96±0.16% AP vs. 0.82±0.21% PP, P=0.001). Mean protein concentrations were reduced AP (AAG=477 mg/L; albumin=3.28 mg/dL) vs. PP (AAG=1007 mg/L; albumin=3.85 mg/dL) mafosfamide (P<0.0001 for each comparison). AAG concentration correlated with LPV binding.

Total LPV concentration did not correlate with LPV FU AP or PP. However, higher LPV concentration PP was associated with reduced PB and higher FU after adjustment for AAG. LPV FU was higher and AAG lower AP vs. PP. The 18% increase in LPV FU AP is smaller than the reduction in total LPV concentration reported previously and is not of sufficient magnitude to eliminate the need for an increased dose during pregnancy. The current US Public Health Service (USPHS) Perinatal Guidelines recommend treatment with highly active antiretroviral (ARV) therapy (HAART) for most pregnant women for maternal control of HIV and prevention of mother-to-child transmission [1]. Lopinavir/ritonavir (LPV/r) is one of the most common boosted protease inhibitor (PI) combinations used by pregnant women in the United States and continues to be the first-line choice for PI therapy for HIV-1-infected pregnant women in many clinical centres. Optimum dosing of PI-based regimens during pregnancy can be complicated by substantial changes in the pharmacokinetics of ARVs, which can be more pronounced during the third trimester of pregnancy. Alterations of gastrointestinal function during pregnancy may impair drug absorption.

Approximately 7% of the adult population has OSA, defined as abnormal repetitive cessation of breathing during sleep. Apneic moments occur as the airway is obstructed, leading to hypercapnia (increased carbon dioxide), hypoxia (decreased oxygen) and resulting sleep fragmentation as the airway is reestablished. In both animal models and humans, neuronal circuitry abnormalities due to apnea have been shown, as well as physiological consequences including cognitive and motor impairment, hypersomnia and metabolic and cardiovascular complications (Dempsey et al., 2010; Wang et al., 2010; Brown et al., 2012; Lal et al., 2012). In this paper, the authors investigated the

well-established link between apnea and fine motor skill deficits (Beebe et al., 2003). Baseline motor cortex excitability was first evaluated. Motor Gefitinib cell line evoked potential thresholds were UK-371804 price elevated,

compared to a non-apneic control group, reflecting abnormal corticospinal excitability. The authors then used a specific rTMS protocol to produce LTD in the motor cortex. Previous work in healthy subjects (Huang et al., 2005) showed that short bursts of stimuli (three pulses at 50 Hz intraburst frequency) repeated at theta frequency, i.e. at 5 Hz, induced long-term potentiation when applied in an intermittent pattern or LTD when applied continuously for 40 s, termed continuous theta-burst stimulation (cTBS). Opie et al. (2013) thus applied cTBS to a particular subregion of the motor cortex, shown previously to innervate hand muscles, and in which motor evoked potentials were suppressed in healthy

subjects, therefore demonstrating cTBS-induced LTD. Apneic patients, though, showed an abnormal response to cTBS, for motor evoked potentials were not attenuated. The authors ruled out DOK2 the possibility that intracortical inhibition played a role in the observed impairment, and concluded that the impaired baseline threshold level for evoked motor potentials, as well as the observed LTD impairment, reflected impaired neuroplasticity in the motor cortex. This exciting and novel investigation by Opie et al. (2013) is the first to use TMS to evaluate cortical neuroplasticity in OSA patients. Although more investigations are needed to describe the mechanism by which cortical neuroplastic changes are induced by cTBS protocols, the results of this study may facilitate OSA treatment. At present, few treatments are available to improve the attentional, mnemonic and/or motor deficits seen in apnea, beyond continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) treatment. Cortical plasticity in the motor cortex could be evaluated following pharmacological, surgical and/or CPAP treatment, to gauge efficacy of treatment. In future studies, other TMS stimulation protocols may also be applied, such as those that induce long-term potentiation, and alternative cortical regions may also be explored.

Approximately 7% of the adult population has OSA, defined as abnormal repetitive cessation of breathing during sleep. Apneic moments occur as the airway is obstructed, leading to hypercapnia (increased carbon dioxide), hypoxia (decreased oxygen) and resulting sleep fragmentation as the airway is reestablished. In both animal models and humans, neuronal circuitry abnormalities due to apnea have been shown, as well as physiological consequences including cognitive and motor impairment, hypersomnia and metabolic and cardiovascular complications (Dempsey et al., 2010; Wang et al., 2010; Brown et al., 2012; Lal et al., 2012). In this paper, the authors investigated the

well-established link between apnea and fine motor skill deficits (Beebe et al., 2003). Baseline motor cortex excitability was first evaluated. Motor click here evoked potential thresholds were PD0332991 elevated,

compared to a non-apneic control group, reflecting abnormal corticospinal excitability. The authors then used a specific rTMS protocol to produce LTD in the motor cortex. Previous work in healthy subjects (Huang et al., 2005) showed that short bursts of stimuli (three pulses at 50 Hz intraburst frequency) repeated at theta frequency, i.e. at 5 Hz, induced long-term potentiation when applied in an intermittent pattern or LTD when applied continuously for 40 s, termed continuous theta-burst stimulation (cTBS). Opie et al. (2013) thus applied cTBS to a particular subregion of the motor cortex, shown previously to innervate hand muscles, and in which motor evoked potentials were suppressed in healthy

subjects, therefore demonstrating cTBS-induced LTD. Apneic patients, though, showed an abnormal response to cTBS, for motor evoked potentials were not attenuated. The authors ruled out Aldol condensation the possibility that intracortical inhibition played a role in the observed impairment, and concluded that the impaired baseline threshold level for evoked motor potentials, as well as the observed LTD impairment, reflected impaired neuroplasticity in the motor cortex. This exciting and novel investigation by Opie et al. (2013) is the first to use TMS to evaluate cortical neuroplasticity in OSA patients. Although more investigations are needed to describe the mechanism by which cortical neuroplastic changes are induced by cTBS protocols, the results of this study may facilitate OSA treatment. At present, few treatments are available to improve the attentional, mnemonic and/or motor deficits seen in apnea, beyond continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) treatment. Cortical plasticity in the motor cortex could be evaluated following pharmacological, surgical and/or CPAP treatment, to gauge efficacy of treatment. In future studies, other TMS stimulation protocols may also be applied, such as those that induce long-term potentiation, and alternative cortical regions may also be explored.

We studied changes in electroencephalographic (EEG) oscillatory activity related to visual modulation of nociception, comparing cortical oscillations during innocuous or noxious contact heat, while participants viewed either their own hand or a neutral object at the same location. Viewing the body compared with viewing the object

reduced the intensity ratings of noxious stimuli, but not of innocuous heat. Time–frequency analysis of EEG data revealed that noxious, as opposed to warm, stimulation was associated with reduced beta (15–25 Hz) power. Classically, such decreases in oscillatory power indicate increases in sensory cortical activation. These event-related oscillatory changes were moreover modulated by the visual context; viewing one’s own body increased noxious RG7422 clinical trial stimulation-induced beta oscillatory activity bilaterally, relative to viewing a neutral object, possibly indicating inhibition of cortical nociceptive processing. These results demonstrate that

visual–nociceptive interactions involve changes in sensorimotor EEG rhythms. “
“The antineoplastic agent paclitaxel causes a dose-limiting distal, symmetrical, sensory peripheral neuropathy that selleck products is often accompanied by a neuropathic pain syndrome. In a low-dose model of paclitaxel-evoked painful peripheral neuropathy in the rat, we have shown that the drug causes degeneration of intraepidermal nerve fibers (IENFs), i.e. the fibers which give rise to the sensory afferent’s terminal receptor arbor. However, we

did not find any evidence for axonal degeneration in samples taken at the mid-nerve level. Here we aimed to determine whether the absence of degenerating peripheral nerve axons was due to sampling a level that was too proximal. ifenprodil We used electron microscopy to study the distal-most branches of the nerves innervating the hind paw glabrous skin of normal and paclitaxel-treated rats. We confirmed that we sampled at a time when IENF degeneration was prominent. Because degeneration might be easier to detect with higher paclitaxel doses, we examined a four-fold cumulative dose range (8–32 mg/kg). We found no evidence of degeneration in the superficial subepidermal axon bundles (sSAB) that are located just a few microns below the epidermal basal lamina. Specifically, for all three dose groups there was no change in the number of sSAB per millimeter of epidermal border, no change in the number of axons per sSAB and no change in the diameter of sSAB axons. We conclude that paclitaxel produces a novel type of lesion that is restricted to the afferent axon’s terminal arbor; we name this lesion ‘terminal arbor degeneration’. “
“This study aimed to evaluate the long-term consequences of early motor training on the muscle phenotype and motor output of middle-aged C57BL/6J mice. Neonatal mice were subjected to a variety of motor training procedures, for 3 weeks during the period of acquisition of locomotion.

, 2006), while Wolbachia from three species (Neotermes luykxi, Neotermes jouteli, Serritermes serrifer) formed a sister clade with supergroup A (Lo & Evans, 2007). Termites of the genus Odontotermes cause heavy destruction of seasoned timber, agricultural crops and buildings, resulting in severe economic loss (Kumari Ibrutinib chemical structure et al., 2009). Odontotermes is a fungus-growing genus (Termitidae), which most often builds concentrated and permanent nests for long periods of time. The species from this

genus have a greater effect on soil properties (Jouquet et al., 2005). Curiously, this tropical group has not yet been explored for Wolbachia infection. Similarly, subterranean termites in the genus Coptotermes (Rhinotermitidae) are structural pests of a destructive nature, which are globally distributed beyond their native range in Southeast Asia (Gentz et al., 2008). Wolbachia infection is reported in two Coptotermes species (supergroup F), but Coptotermes heimi species has not been explored for infection. In the present report,

we show: (1) the presence of Wolbachia in the termites, Odontotermes spp. and C. heimi; (2) the diversity of Wolbachia within these termites using MLST and 16S rRNA genes; and (3) the phylogenetic affiliation of termite Wolbachia. All termite samples were collected in different regions of India, mainly various locations from the state of pentoxifylline Maharashtra and were preserved in absolute Natural Product Library chemical structure ethanol at −20 °C until DNA

extraction. Termites from 14 populations were examined irrespective of their castes i.e. nonreproductive ‘worker’ or ‘pseudergate’, soldiers or reproductive alates (Table 1). DNA extraction was carried out from whole termites using the QIAamp®DNA Mini Kit (QIAGEN®) following the manufacturer’s instructions. DNA quality was assessed by PCR for 28S rRNA gene using arthropod-specific primers described by Werren et al. (1995) and samples with weak or no amplification were extracted again. Twelve colonies of Odontotermes spp. and two colonies of C. heimi (5–10 individuals per colony) were screened initially for Wolbachia infection by PCR for the wsp gene using primers and reported protocols (Braig et al., 1998). Primer details and PCR protocols for amplification of the five reported Wolbachia MLST genes (ftsZ, coxA, fbpA, hcpA and gatB) are described elsewhere (Baldo et al., 2006). The sequence data were analyzed against the Wolbachia MLST database (http://pubmlst.org/Wolbachia/). The Wolbachia 16S rRNA gene fragment was amplified using specific primers and the PCR protocol described by O’Neill et al. (1992). Samples were also subjected to PCR using primers and protocols specific for insect mitochondrial 16S rRNA gene (Kambhampati, 1995). All PCR products were purified using the PEG-NaCl method (Sambrook et al., 1989).

Moderate susceptibility to rocephin (30 μg), neomycin (30 μg) and carbenicillin (100 μg). Resistant to vancomycin (30 μg), chlorodeoxylincomycin

(2 μg), acheomycin (30 μg), doxycyclin (30 μg), minocin (30 μg), penicillin (10 μg), oxacillin (1 μg), ampicillin (10 μg), cephalothin IV (30 μg), cefazolin V (30 μg), cephradin VI (30 μg) and cifuroxime (30 μg). Strain WH169T contains three polar lipids: Trametinib in vitro large amounts of phosphatidylethanolamine and phosphatidylglycerol as its main polar lipids and small amounts of an unidentified phospholipid. The predominant ubiquinone is ubiquinone-8. The principal fatty acids are C16:1ω7c and/or C16:1ω6c, C16:0 and C18:1ω7c, with minor amounts of C14:0, C18:0, C12:1 3-OH, C12:0, iso-C13:0, C12:0 3-OH, C17:1ω8c, C17:0, anteiso-C17:0 and C14:0 3-OH and/or iso-C16:1 I. The G+C content Epacadostat research buy of the DNA is 49.4 mol%. The type strain is WH169T (=CGMCC 1.8995T=LMG 25283T), which was isolated from the Yellow Sea in China. The distinguishing traits of the organism have been included in Table 1. This work was supported by grants from the National High Technology R&D Program of China (no. 2007AA09Z434) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (no. 40876067). Fig. S1. Two dimensional thin-layer chromatography (TLC) of polar lipids from the novel strain WH169T.

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the article. “
“Nine pigs were inoculated intravenously once or twice with 108Staphylococcus aureus per kilogram body weight and sacrificed 12, 24 and 48 h after inoculation. Three sham-infected pigs served as controls. Blood samples were taken for bacteriology, haematology and clinical chemistry. A necropsy was carried out and tissue samples were collected for bacteriology and histology. The onset of clinical disease was seen at 7–8 h after inoculation. The blood bacterial counts remained low throughout the study. All infected pigs developed sepsis characterized Obeticholic Acid datasheet by fever, neutrophilia, increased levels of C-reactive protein (CRP) and IL-6, and decreased levels of serum iron. The CRP and IL-6 levels peaked at 36 h, whereas IL-1β and tumour necrosis factor-α showed no obvious changes. Thromboelastography showed increasing hypercoagulability from 12 h and onwards, whereas the platelet numbers declined slightly throughout the experiment. The levels of serum aspartate aminotransferase and bilirubin were elevated at 24 and 36 h. In conclusion, sepsis and severe sepsis were induced as evidenced by dysfunction of the blood clotting system and the liver.