Brigitte König

Brigitte König
University of Leipzig · Institut für Medizinische Mikrobiologie und Infektionsepidemiologie

Prof. Dr.

About

228
Publications
15,584
Reads
How we measure 'reads'
A 'read' is counted each time someone views a publication summary (such as the title, abstract, and list of authors), clicks on a figure, or views or downloads the full-text. Learn more
3,825
Citations

Publications

Publications (228)
Article
Full-text available
Platelets are metabolically active, anucleated and small circulating cells mainly responsible for the prevention of bleeding and maintenance of hemostasis. Previous studies showed that platelets mitochondrial content, function, and energy supply change during several diseases such as HIV/AIDS, COVID-19, pulmonary arterial hypertension, and in preec...
Article
Full-text available
Mitochondria are responsible for ATP synthesis through oxidative phosphorylation in cells. However, there are limited data on the influence of mitochondrial mass (MM) in the adequate assessment of cellular stress assay (CSA) results in human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs). Therefore, the aim of this study was to determine MM in PBMCS an...
Article
Full-text available
Cellular stress is central to the understanding of pathological mechanisms and the development of new therapeutic strategies and serves as a biomarker for disease progression in neurodegeneration, diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular and other chronic diseases. The common cellular stress assay (CSA) based on Seahorse technology in peripheral blood mono...
Article
Full-text available
Background The worldwide increasing number of people with chronic diseases is pushing conventional therapy to its limits. The so-called Major AutoHaemo Therapy (MAH) has been used in many practices for years. Despite suspicions, especially the 10-passes ozone-high-dosis Therapy (OHT) has shown substantial benefits in chronic ailments. However, know...
Article
Full-text available
Several studies have assessed the effects of intermittent hypoxia-normoxia training (IHNT), intermittent hypoxia-hyperoxia training (IHHT), and obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) on aging and age-related diseases in humans; however, the results remain contradictory. Therefore, this review aims to systematically summarize the available studies on the eff...
Article
Full-text available
Background Interleukin-1 (IL-1) is still regarded as the main offender that promotes the pro-inflammatory cascade in muscle injuries, tendopathies and especially in osteoarthritis. Thus, if present in high enough concentrations, IL-1receptor antagonist (IL-1Ra) has the potential to inhibit Interleukin-1. In this regard, autologous conditioned serum...
Article
Full-text available
Tuberculosis (TB), which is caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), is still one of the deadliest infectious diseases. Understanding how the host and pathogen interact in active TB will have a significant impact on global TB control efforts. Exosomes are increasingly recognized as a means of cell-to-cell contact and exchange of so...
Article
Full-text available
The effects of short-term hyperoxia on age-related diseases and aging biomarkers have been reported in animal and human experiments using different protocols; however, the findings of the studies remain conflicting. In this systematic review, we summarized the existing reports in the effects of short-term hyperoxia on age-related diseases, hypoxia-...
Article
Full-text available
Introduction HIV p24 antigen-positive T cells measured by flow cytometry (FCM) correlate directly with HIV viral load, inversely with CD4⁺ T cells, and decrease with antiretroviral therapy (ART). However, the sensitivity of FCM assays depends on the protocol of intracellular staining. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the diagnostic performan...
Article
Full-text available
Genomic surveillance can inform effective public health responses to pathogen outbreaks. However, integration of non-local data is rarely done. We investigate two large hospital outbreaks of a carbapenemase-carrying Klebsiella pneumoniae strain in Germany and show the value of contextual data. By screening about 10 000 genomes, over 400 000 metagen...
Article
Full-text available
It has been shown from the isolation and characterization of exosomes from cell culture media supplemented with fetal bovine serum that both their quality and purity are affected. The high abundance of serum proteins, including bovine cell derived exosomes, is also a potential source of contaminants, which may result in appreciable yields of impure...
Preprint
Full-text available
Genomic surveillance can inform effective public health responses to pathogen outbreaks. However, integration of non-local data is rarely done. We investigate two large hospital outbreaks of a carbapenemase-carrying Klebsiella pneumoniae strain in Germany and show the value of contextual data. By screening more than ten thousand genomes, 500 thousa...
Article
Full-text available
Background: Although adverse food reactions are commonly divided into immunoglobulin E (IgE) mediated food allergy (FA), and non-IgE FA, the current literature is providing support for the role of innate immune responses as an important component of non-IgE FA. Using a commercially available leukocyte activation (LA) assay, a recent quantitative st...
Preprint
Full-text available
Background Interleukin-1 (IL-1) is still regarded as the main offender that promotes the pro-inflammatory cascade in muscle injuries, tendopathies and especially in osteoarthritis. Thus, if present in high enough concentrations, IL-1receptor antagonist (IL-1Ra) has the potential to inhibit Interleukin-1. In this regard, autologous conditioned serum...
Preprint
Full-text available
Background Interleukin-1 (IL-1) is still regarded as the main offender that promotes the pro-inflammatory cascade in muscle injuries, tendopathies and especially in osteoarthritis. Thus, if present in high enough concentrations, IL-1receptor antagonist (IL-1Ra) has the potential to inhibit Interleukin-1. In this regard, autologous conditioned serum...
Article
Full-text available
Neonatal sepsis caused by resistant bacteria is a worldwide concern due to the associated high mortality and increased hospitals costs. Bacterial pathogens causing neonatal sepsis and their antibiotic resistance patterns vary among hospital settings and at different points in time. This study aimed to determine the antibiotic resistance patterns of...
Article
Full-text available
Tuberculosis (TB) remains a major health issue worldwide. In order to contain TB infections, improved vaccines as well as accurate and reliable diagnostic tools are desirable. Exosomes are employed for the diagnosis of various diseases. At present, research on exosomes in TB is still at the preliminary stage. Recent studies have described isolation...
Preprint
Full-text available
Effective public health response to viral outbreaks such as SARS-CoV-2 is often informed by real-time PCR screening of large populations. Pooling samples can increase screening capacity. However, when a traditional pool is tested positive, all samples in the pool need individual retesting, which becomes ineffective at a higher proportion of positiv...
Article
Full-text available
Background Diarrhoea remains an important cause of childhood mortality in Nigeria, with Rotavirus and Cryptosporidium reported to have the highest contribution. However, high use of antibiotics for treatment of paediatric diarrhoea has been observed, although World Health Organization guidelines discourage the use of antibiotics for treating acute...
Preprint
Full-text available
An ever-growing number of metagenomes can be used for biomining and the study of microbial functions. The use of learning algorithms in this context has been hindered, because they often need input in the form of low-dimensional, dense vectors of numbers. We propose such a representation for genomes called nanotext that scales to very large data se...
Article
Full-text available
Although the impact of diarrhoeal disease on paediatric health in Nigeria has decreased in recent years, it remains an important cause of morbidity and mortality in children under 5 years. Rotavirus is recognised as an important aetiological agent, but information on the contribution of intestinal protozoa to watery diarrhoea in this age group in N...
Article
Background: In 2016, an increased rate of methicillin-susceptible Staphylococcus aureus colonization was detected on a neonatal intensive care unit at the Leipzig University Hospital. Typing results showed a predominant spa-type t091. Considering nosocomial clustering, several infection prevention measures (e. g. intensified standard precautions,...
Article
Full-text available
The naked mole-rat (Heterocephalus glaber) is a subterranean mouse-sized African mammal that shows astonishingly few age-related degenerative changes and seems to not be affected by cancer. These features make this wild rodent an excellent model to study the biology of healthy aging and longevity. Here we characterize for the first time the intesti...
Article
Full-text available
Coagulase-negative staphylococci (CoNS) are the most prevalent pathogens causing late-onset sepsis in neonates. The question is whether neonates acquire endemic hospital-adapted clones or incidentally occurring CoNS strains after birth during their hospital stay. Therefore, a prospective study was performed on the prevalence of CoNS in the stool of...
Article
Full-text available
Background Pulmonary nocardiosis mimic pulmonary tuberculosis in most clinical and radiological manifestations. In Tanzania, where tuberculosis is one of the major public health threat clinical impact of nocardiosis as the cause of the human disease remains unknown. The objective of the present study was to isolate and identify Nocardia isolates re...
Article
Full-text available
Introduction In contrast to industrialized countries, until recently Group B Streptococcus (GBS) was infrequently reported in the developing world. This study was aimed at investigating the prevalence of GBS maternal colonization and to analyze the serotype distribution among the isolates. Methods Vagino-rectal swabs collected from pregnant women...
Article
Full-text available
Introduction: in contrast to industrialized countries, until recently Group B Streptococcus (GBS) was infrequently reported in the developing world. This study was aimed at investigating the prevalence of GBS maternal colonization and to analyze the serotype distribution among the isolates. Methods: vagino-rectal swabs collected from pregnant wome...
Article
Full-text available
Background Enterococci are responsible for up to 12% of cases of healthcare associated infections worldwide and cause life threatening infections among critically ill patients. They show intrinsic and acquired resistance to a wide range of antimicrobial agents. Glycopeptide resistance is due to vanA, vanB, vanC, vanD, vanE, vanG and vanL genes. Ob...
Article
Full-text available
Background: A variety of microbial communities exist throughout the human and animal body. Genetics, environmental factors and long-term dietary habit contribute to shaping the composition of the gut microbiota. For this reason the study of the gut microbiota of a mammal exhibiting an extraordinary life span is of great importance. The naked mole-...
Article
Introduction: Information regarding the resistance pattern of Candida species in developing countries is limited. Most sensitivity studies were performed on few isolates and/or few antifungal agents using the disc diffusion method because of limited resources.Methods and Material: We evaluated six antifungal agents against Candida isolates recovere...
Article
Full-text available
Background: The role of nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) in tuberculosis (TB) diagnosis is well documented in many developing settings. However, this has not been the case in many resource poor settings like Tanzania. This study aimed at understanding the role of NTM in the diagnosis and management of TB in resource poor settings of Tanzania. Meth...
Article
Full-text available
Non-tuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) are increasingly reported worldwide associated with human disease. Defining the significance of NTM in settings with endemic tuberculosis (TB) requires the discrimination of NTM from TB in suspect patients. Correct and timely identification of NTM will impact both therapy and epidemiology of TB and TB-like disease...
Article
Full-text available
Background: Penicillin is recommended as the first-line agent for intrapartum antibiotic prophylaxis (IAP). Although Group B Streptococcus (GBS) strains are generally susceptible to penicillin with only occasional resistance, they show varying resistance to erythromycin, clindamycin, and tetracycline. Therefore, knowledge of the resistance profile...
Article
Full-text available
Objective: To determine the prevalence and risk factors associated with drug resistance tuberculosis (TB) at facility-base level in Tanga, Tanzania. Methods: A total of 79 Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) isolates included in the study were collected from among 372 (312 new and 60 previously treated) TB suspects self-referred to four TB clinics...
Article
Full-text available
was to investigate the immune-modulatory potential of commercially available PTFE and polyester vascular grafts with and without gelatine-coating. The biomaterial-cell-interaction was characterized by changes of established parameters such as PMN-related receptors/mediators, phagocytosis potential and capacity as well as the effect of an additional...
Article
Full-text available
Diarrhea remains the second largest killer of children worldwide, and Nigeria ranks number two on the list of global deaths attributable to diarrhea. Meanwhile, prevalence studies on potentially diarrheagenic protozoa in asymptomatic carriers using molecular detection methods remain scarce in sub-Saharan countries. To overcome sensitivity issues re...
Article
Full-text available
The relationship between intestinal helminth infection and susceptibility to malaria remains unclear. We studied the relationship between these infections. Seven schools in Ilero, Nigeria referred all pupils with febrile illness to our study center for free malaria treatment during a 3-month study period. At the end, all pupils submitted a stool sa...
Article
Full-text available
Multi-drug-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae carbapenemase (KPC)-2-producing K. pneumoniae are an increasing cause of healthcare-associated infections worldwide. To investigate the impact of clinical infection on mortality, and examine the effect of use of KPC-2-specific polymerase chain reaction (PCR) on the time to contact isolation during an outbr...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Background: Soil Transmitted Helminths (STH) and other Neglected Tropical Diseases continue to promote poverty and frustrate the achievement of the health-related Millennium Development Goals in endemic areas. To control the morbidity of STH, World Health Organization recommends Preventive Chemotherapy for at risk populations. Several studies have...
Article
Full-text available
Background: Penicillin is recommended as the first-line agent for intrapartum antibiotic prophylaxis, while ampicillin is considered as an acceptable alternative. Although GBS strains are generally susceptible to penicillin with only occasional resistance, they show varying resistance to erythromycin, clindamycin and tetracycline. Therefore, a know...
Article
Full-text available
Purpose: This study was set out to find out the pattern of antimalarial drug use in a Nigerian rural community following the aggressive price subsidy of Artemisinin Combination Therapy(ACT) recently embarked upon by Roll Back Malaria partners through Affordable Medicines Facility-malaria (AMFm).Methods: Questioners were administered to 310 adult me...
Article
Full-text available
In Nigeria, malaria causes up to 11% of maternal mortality. Our main aim was to find out the most common mosquito control measures employed by the pregnant women in Lagos and their effects on malaria infection. The study was carried out over a period of 6 months during which trained interviewers administered questionnaires to 400 pregnant women. Th...
Article
Full-text available
Infections caused by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) are responsible for rising health care costs and have a high attribution to mortality. Reliable and rapid detection of MRSA carriage is essential. Real-time PCR allows an early detection of MRSA colonization within 2 h. By using the BD GeneOhm-MRSA assay we analysed directly sw...
Article
Early detection of the causing microorganism and timely therapeutic intervention are crucial for improved outcome of patients with sepsis. Quite recently, we evaluated the technical and diagnostic feasibility of a commercial multiplex real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) (LightCycler SeptiFast® assay) for detection of blood stream infections i...
Article
Full-text available
Background. In line with the World Health Organization (WHO) guideline on chloroquine (CQ) resistance, CQ was withdrawn as the first-line antimalarial drug in Nigeria in 2005 as a result of widespread resistance. It was expected that its sensitivity and clinical usefulness would be restored with time. This study therefore aimed to determine the lev...
Article
Evidence on the impact of using diagnostic tests in community case management of febrile children is limited. This effectiveness trial conducted in Burkina Faso, Ghana, and Uganda, compared a diagnostic and treatment package for malaria and pneumonia with presumptive treatment with anti-malarial drugs; artemisinin combination therapy (ACT). We enro...
Article
We studied the mutual interaction of human endothelial cells on co‐incubation with prostate carcinoma (PCA, PC3, LNCAP, DU145) and prostate hyperplasia (BPH) cells in the presence of 15d‐PGJ2 and glitazones (troglitazone, ciglitazone). The cells were stimulated with growth factors (VEGF, EGF, HGF, IGF, FGF) at various concentrations (1–100 ng). PPA...
Article
Dermal fillers are becoming increasingly popular as a means to help reverse the changes associated with aging. Hyaluronic acid (HA)-based dermal fillers in particular are generally considered non-toxic, non-immunogenic and mostly natural. However, the increasing appearance of complications, in particular nodular granulomatous reactions, raises the...
Article
Full-text available
Salmonella spp. are recognized as some of the most common causes of enteritis worldwide. This study aimed to identify clinically isolated S. Typhimurium in western Kenya and to assess antimicrobial resistance profiles and strain inter-relatedness. The study was performed in rural Maseno, Nyanza province in Kenya, between February 2004 and June 2005...
Article
Diarrhoea occurs frequently in neutropenic patients with acute leukaemia receiving chemotherapy and may be caused by either infection- or drug-induced cytotoxicity. Since Clostridium difficile is the most common cause of nosocomial infectious diarrhoea in non-haematologic patients, we were interested in its incidence in patients with acute myeloid...
Article
An adequate approach to surgically induced sepsis needs an early and targeted antibiotic therapy in addition to focus sanitation. The PCR-based LightCycler Septifast test can detect 90 % of the sepsis-associated microoganisms (e. g., Gram-positive, Gram-negative bacteria, fungi) within only a few hours. A systematic microbiological screening was pe...
Article
Full-text available
Aspergillus peritonitis is a rare life-threatening complication of peritoneal dialysis (PD). We report a case of symptomatic Neosartorya pseudofischeri peritonitis in a 60-year-old woman treated by continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis (CAPD) for 13 months, who performed peritoneal exchanges independently. This is believed to be the first publi...
Article
We studied the mutual interaction of human lymphocyte mononuclear cells on co‐incubation with prostate carcinoma (PCA) and BPH cells in the presence of 15d‐PGJ2 and glitazones (troglitazone, ciglitazone). The cells were stimulated with growth factors (VEGF, EGF, HGF, IGF, FGF) at various concentrations (1‐100 ng). PPAR‐gamma ligands at various conc...
Article
Full-text available
Nowadays, influenza antigen detection test kits are used most frequently to detect influenza A or B virus to establish the diagnosis of influenza rapidly and initiate appropriate therapy. This study was conducted to evaluate the performance of the actim Influenza A&B test (Medix Biochemica). Overall, 473 respiratory specimens were analysed in the a...
Article
In reconstructive vascular surgery, infection is one of the most feared complications because of the high mortality. While the antimicrobial effect of a silver-coated endoprosthesis has been proven in experimental trials, there are no reports on its interactions with granulocytes, the first effector cells in general inflammation and in infection. T...
Article
Full-text available
Phenotypic, genotypic, and toxin gene analyses have not yet been done all in one for the Nigerian Staphylococcus aureus population. This study provides a comprehensive overview of the molecular epidemiology and genetic diversity of S. aureus strains at the largest university clinic in Ibadan, Nigeria. From 1,300 patients' clinical samples collected...
Conference Paper
Background: Community-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (CA-MRSA) is a serious pathogen world-wide. This study provides a comprehensive overview on the molecular epidemiology and genetic diversity of S. aureus at the largest university clinic in Ibadan, Nigeria. Methods: At the University Teaching Hospital in Ibadan, Nigeria, o...
Article
Prostate carcinoma cells (PC3, LNCAP, DU145) as well as prostate hyperplasia (BPH cells) can be activated for proinflammatory mediator release and parameters of innate immunity by bacteria as well as by various growth factors. Peroxisome proliferator‐activated receptors (PPAR) are ligand activated transcription factors with antiinflammatory, antine...
Article
Full-text available
An ulcer categorized as Fontaine's stage IV represents a chronic wound, risk factor of arteriosclerosis, and co-morbidities which disturb wound healing. Our objective was to analyze wound healing and to assess potential factors affecting the healing process. 199 patients were included in this 5-year study. The significance levels were determined by...
Article
Full-text available
Infections caused by extended-spectrum beta-lactamase (ESBL)- and ampC beta-lactamase-producing gram-negative bacteria complicate therapy and limit treatment options. Several different panels for ESBL detection with automated systems exist. In addition, a chromogenic agar medium is available for ESBL screening. We compared two automated identificat...
Article
Full-text available
The analysis of 16S rRNA gene sequences has been the technique generally used to study the evolution and taxonomy of staphylococci. However, the results of this method do not correspond to the results of polyphasic taxonomy, and the related species cannot always be distinguished from each other. Thus, new phylogenetic markers for Staphylococcus spp...
Article
Full-text available
Helicobacter pylori infections can be effectively treated with clarithromycin, a macrolide, in combination with other antibiotics, such as amoxicillin, tetracycline or metronidazole. The failure of H. pylori eradication is mainly associated with macrolide-resistant strains. Three point mutations (A2142G/C, A2143G, T2182C) in the peptidyltransferase...
Article
Classical phenotypic and biochemical testing do not lead to correct identification of the distinct Staphylococcus species. Therefore, the aim of our study was to develop a method for the reliable and accurate determination of distinct Staphylococcus species. In the present study, the 931-934-bp partial sequences of the glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate de...