Cytokines signatures and susceptibility to cutaneous leishmaniasis in patients from Sistan and Baluchestan province of Iran.

BACKGROUND: Cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) is a complex, multifactorial disease that results from environmental factors such as parasite polymorphism, phlebotomine vectors, and host genetic factors. Some studies have identified specific genetic factors that may be associated with cutaneous leishmaniasis. The objective of this research was to resolve the association of 8 cytokine polymorphisms, including TNF-α -308 A/G (rs 1800629), TNF-α -238 A/G (rs 361525), TGF-ß1 -509 T/C (rs 1800469), TGF-ß1+ 915 G/C (rs 1800471), IFN-γ -874 T/A (rs 2430561), IFN-γ -179 G/A (rs 2069709), IL-10 -819 C/T (rs 1800871), and IL-10 -592 A/C (rs 1800872) with susceptibility to CL. METHODS: A total of 152 patients with designated CL and 100 healthy controls were selected from those referred to Sistan and Baluchestan hospitals. CL was diagnosed by microscopic examination of Giemsa-stained samples and culture. Leishmania species were identified using ITS2 gene PCR amplification with universal primers. Genetic polymorphism was determined by the ARMS PCR method on extracted genomic DNA of individuals. Eight SNPs cytokines were genotyped. RESULTS: Most of the Genotypic and allelic frequency comparisons between patients with CL and healthy subjects showed no difference, except 3. Individual SNP analysis showed highest association of TGF-ß1 -509 (rs1800469) -CC genotype (P = 0.03, OR = 7.05, 95 % CI = 3.3-15) with 5.7-fold increase, IFN-γ -874 (rs 2430561) -AA genotype (P = 0.04, OR = 4.72, 95 % CI = 1.6-14) with 4.2-fold increase, and IL10 -819 (rs1800871) -CC genotype (P = 0.05, OR = 3.63, 95 % CI = 2.5-5.3) with 1.9-fold increase, with CL. Odds ratios (ORs) and 95 % confidence intervals (CIs) were evaluated to assess the association power. CONCLUSION: Our results conclude that rs1800469 (TGF-ß1), rs2430561 (INF-γ), and rs1800872 (IL10) polymorphisms are associated with CL in southeastern Iranian people.

Phage display technology for fabricating a recombinant monoclonal ScFv antibody against tetanus toxin.

Tetanus is a specific infectious disease, often associated with lower immunization in developing countries and catastrophic events (such as earthquakes). Millions of people, especially children, die every year from tetanus disease. Therefore, it is necessary to devise a rapid and sensitive detection method for tetanus toxin to ensure an early diagnosis and clinical treatment of tetanus. The current study looks at developing a novel, high specific, low-cost, and sensitive ScFv antibody. It is capable of tetanus detection immunoassays in clinical diagnosis, suspicious foods, and water monitoring. For this regard, a high-quality phage display antibody library (8.7 × 107 PFU/ml) was constructed. Tetanus-specific antibodies with high affinity retrieved from libraries. After phage rescue and four rounds of biopanning, clone screening was performed by phage ELISA. Recombinant antibodies expressed from the AC8 clone showed the highest affinity for tetanus. SDS-PAGE and western blotting confirmed the presence of a high-quality, pure ScFv band at 32 kDa. ELISA was used to determine the affinity value, estimated to be around 10-8 M. The results suggest that the proposed detection method by ScFv antibodies is an alternative diagnostic tool enabling rapid and specific detection of the tetanus toxin.

Expression Profile of miRNA-17-3p and miRNA-17-5p Genes in Gastric Cancer Patients with Helicobacter pylori Infection.

BACKGROUND: The most common chronic bacterial infection is Helicobacter pylori. The connection between chronic H. pylori infection and gastric cancer is recognized. The early detection of gastric cancer improves survival. miRNAs regulate gene expression in eukaryotes by inhibiting mRNA translocation or degradation. The objective of this study was to compare the expression of miRNA-17-3p and miRNA-17-5p genes in gastric cancer patients with Helicobacter pylori infection. METHODS: Herein, 30 isolates were identified as H. pylori based on urease test, and 30 and 12 cases were isolated from gastric cancer patients and non-Helicobacter pylori cases as control, respectively. A peripheral blood sample was collected from patients. Analysis of total mRNA extracts from peripheral blood samples, for gene expression changes (miRNA-17-3p and miRNA-17-5p) by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR), was done. RESULTS: As said by the results, p values showed that expression levels of miRNA-17-3p and miRNA-17-5p were significantly higher in H. pylori-positive GC patients and H. pylori-positive non-GC patients with comparing by healthy controls. So, there was no significant difference between expression levels of miRNA-17-3p and miRNA-17-5p in H. pylori-positive GC patients and H. pylori-positive non-GC patients. CONCLUSION: Considering our results, the high expression of miRNA-17-3p and miRNA-17-5p has a direct relationship with increased cell proliferation, inhibition of tumor cell apoptosis and tumor angiogenesis, in addition to miRNAs play an important role as biomarkers in helping for detection of the patient by H. pylori infection to become cancerous. Therefore, it can be used to make specific diagnostic kits and to treat patients.

To Study the Anti-cancer Effects of Shigella Flexneri in AspC-1 Pancreatic Cancer Cell Line in Approach to Bax and bcl-2 Genes.

INTRODUCTION: Cancer is the uncontrolled division of cells and can be caused by genetic or environmental factors. Pancreatic cancer is one of the deadliest among all cancers. The role of bacteria as an anticancer agent dates back to almost 100 years ago. The microbiome has recently become a focus of research in carcinogenesis and even pancreatic cancer. Shigella flexneri is a gram-negative bacterium, which causes shigellosis with symptoms such as diarrhea, fever, and stomach cramps in human. Shigella flexneri may play a very important role in the internal pathways of apoptosis and may induce apoptosis in some of the cancerous cells. MATERIAL AND METHODS: In this experiment bacteria were cultured on Salmonella-Shigella agar, then inoculated into BHI Broth medium. After sonication, the protein concentration of the bacterium was measured by using the ZellBio Sensitive Protein Bradford Assay kit. MTT assay was performed to obtain IC50 for the said bacterial protein. Later by cDNA kit synthesized the cDNA based on the RNA template. In the end, the results were analyzed using real-time PCR and the expression of Bax and Bcl-2 genes was measured before and after treatment. RESULTS: The results showed that Shigella flexneri has the potential anti-proliferative effect in pancreatic cancer. The inhibitory concentration, pro-apoptotic amount to upregulate Bax, and meanwhile also to downregulate the bcl-2 found to be 10 µl. CONCLUSION: In general, due to defects in the apoptotic pathway in cancer cells and the existence of drug-resistant cells, the detection of new apoptotic inducers such as Shigella flexneri cell extract can be used for further studies on cancer therapy.

Construction of human anti-tetanus single-chain variable fragment applying SYMPLEX technology.

BACKGROUND: Human monoclonal antibodies are important molecules in clinical research. Current Limitations of mAb technologies namely instability of immortalized B-cell line and probability of forming unusual VH-VL pairs in phage-display method led to mAbs technology based on single plasma cell called ``SYMPLEX''. OBJECTIVE: In this method, cognate VH and VL fragments generated from individual antibody genes exactly the same as natural ones. METHODS: PBMCs of whole blood of an immunized candidate was used as a resource of rearranged Ab genes. Then flow-cytometric screening was performed to isolate VH and VL from PBMCs. Various VH and VLκ were amplified by six pairs of primers. Overlap Extension PCR was accomplished to link VH and Vκ regions. ScFv inserted into T-vector and its sequence was determined and eventually analyzed by using blast analysis tools. RESULTS: Electrophoresis results indicated that VH and VL fragments were separately amplified by PCR with a length of about 400bp and linked through OE-PCR. Hence, ScFv, which was approximately 800bp in size, was constructed then sequencing and BLASTn results of the ScFv fragment consequently proved the accuracy. CONCLUSION: Results showed 88% similarity to available sequences in mentioned databank. ScFv was ultimately inserted into expression vector for producing recombinant human anti-tetanus mAb.

Construction of scFv library of human antibodies against tetanus toxin.

BACKGROUND: Over the last three decades, monoclonal antibodies have become powerful therapeutics and diagnostics tools. Progress in the antibody engineering, and the appearance of great selection technology such as phage display has made human antibodies production possible against antigens with high affinities. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to construct an immune antibody library from a vaccinated donor against tetanus toxin. METHODS: A blood sample was drawn from the donor who was vaccinated with tetanus toxoid. PBMC were isolated by using ficoll. After RNA extraction and cDNA synthesis. In order to amplify VH and VL regions, two uniplex PCRs were performed and put considering NcoI & HindIII, MluI & NotI restriction sites respectively for their cloning. These amplicons were cloned to pSEX81 vector and transformed to E. coli XL1blue strain. Eventually, recombinant plasmids were extracted and sequenced. RESULTS: The result showed acceptable similarity between antibody gene library nucleotide sequences and the antibody genes were deposited in this database. CONCLUSION: In this study, the VH and VL genes human antibody library was constructed and confirmed by using DNA sequencing and alignment of sequences with blast database.