Detection of Salmonella spp. by Traditional and PCR Assays in Raw Milk, Maysan, Iraq.

Salmonella spp are characterized as rod- shaped, motile, gram- negative bacteria which has the ability to infect animals and human. Salmonella spp occasionally causes sickness while in most cases not lead to severe symptoms. Analyzing milk for Salmonella spp. is not routine but traditional culture methods are used to evaluate the health condition of the dairy products. However, the antibody-based and nucleic-acid- based methods are practical for identifying Salmonella spp. Therefore, this research was designed to evaluate the use of traditional culture methods and PCR in detection of the presence of Salmonella spp. in raw milk samples in, Maysan Iraq. A total number of 130 raw milk samples collected from Maysan Iraq. All the samples were analyzed for the presence of Salmonella spp. using traditional culture method and polymerase chain reaction (PCR). The culture method used in this experiment were done by using pre-enrichment, enrichment, selective plating and biochemical tests. The results of this traditional technique were compared with the results obtained from PCR method. The PCR was performed using a 284bp sequence of the invA gene. The results showed that 8 (7.07%) of samples were identified as salmonella positive using traditional culture technique but 14 (12.3%) samples were detected as salmonella positive by PCR method. The results of the current research revealed that the traditional culture based methods are generally time costuming and labor intensive but the development of new rapid methods including DNA based methods such as PCR are more sensitive and have dramatically decreased the time necessary for the detection of bacteria.

Investigation of in vitro Cytotoxicity of Chelidonium majus against Leishmania major.

One of the public health issues in the endemic areas, especially in the Middle East region would be the Leishmaniasis. The suggested cure for leishmaniasis is pentavalent antimonials. These medications have drastic side effects and the risk of relapse. On the other hand, nowadays use of herbal remedies as safe and cost-effective treatments have been increased. Therefore this study was designed to determine in vitro anti-leishmanial activity of methanol extracts of greater celandine (Chelidonium majus) against Leishmania major. Greater celandine extract was added to L. major promastigotes and intra-macrophagic amastigotes. After 24, 48 and 72 h in vitro culture the percentage of promastigotes viability was calculated by direct counting method and MTT assay. Cytotoxicity in intra-macrophagic amastigotes was evaluated by direct counting method. Viability in minimum dose and maximum dose-treated groups (1.5 and 90 µg/ml) after 24 h, was 55.52% and 36.34%, respectively. After 48 h, it was 40% and 25.26% and after 72 h, it was 62.18% and 38.45%, respectively. The half maximal inhibitory concentration (IC50) was 0.92 µg/ml, after 24 h. Cytotoxicity in intra-macrophagic amastigotes treated by 3 µg/ml dose after 24 and 48 h, was 33.23% and 50.34%, respectively. It could be concluded that greater celandine methanolic extract has in vitro cytotoxic effect on the L. major in time and dose-dependent pattern.