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Background: In this study, we check for the presence of specific resistance genes by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and then we used flow cytometry (FCM) to evaluate antibiotic-induced effects in different strains of Escherichia coli (E. coli)., Methods: The presence of resistance genes was investigated by PCR in 10 strains of E. coli isolated from Foglia River. Bacterial responses to different antibiotics were also tested with FCM techniques by evaluating both the degree of decrease in viability and the light scatter changes in all of the strains., Results: PCR revealed that only one strain exhibits the presence of one resistance gene. Despite this, analyses of strains using FCM evidenced the presence of viable subpopulations after antibiotic treatment. Furthermore, analyses of scatter signals revealed profound changes in the Forward Scatter and Side Scatter of the bacterial populations as a consequence of antibiotic exposure, confirming the viability and membrane potential data. The riverine strains were in general less sensitive to antibiotics than the reference strain (ATCC 25922)., Conclusions: Antibiotic resistance is a widespread phenomena. The multiparametric approach based on FCM used in this study, providing results about different aspects (cell viability, membrane potential, light scatter changes), may overcome the limitation of PCR and could represent an adequate method for the evaluation of bacteria responses to antibiotic exposure., (© 2014 International Clinical Cytometry Society.)

Background: Erythrocyte morphology has already been studied in essential hypertension (EH) and cell membrane alterations have been observed. Relationships among red cell rheological, biochemical, and morphological properties still appear complex and are not clearly understood., Methods: Erythrocyte morphology study was carried out by using the novel automated method we have recently developed. The morphometric parameters derived from optical microscope images were elaborated with image processing software (NIH Scion Image) to construct an application for the principal component analysis (PCA) to achieve a reliable and objective statistical method that would discriminate among erythrocyte morphologies of the considered groups. Three groups of subjects were studied: healthy (n = 30), healthy with familial EH (n = 25), and EH suffering subjects (n = 26)., Results: Our results show that morphological modifications are evident in both erythrocytes from EH and from healthy with familial EH subjects as compared to the controls. PCA showed remarkable morphological alterations in EH patients. In fact, the PCA explains for the 86.271% of the total variance that can be considered an excellent result., Conclusions: The results suggest that the use of this automated easy and inexpensive method for the detection of cell shape abnormalities is of high value in the early EH prediction., (Copyright 2007 Clinical Cytometry Society.)