Assessment of Infected Biomphalaria alexandrina Snails by Detecting Schistosoma mansoni Antigen and Specific Gene

Abs tract: To control s pread of Schi s t o s oma mansoni infection, rapid and accurate inves tigation of infected Biomphalaria alexandrina s nails that s urveyed from any s us pected area is required. Routine ass ays for ass ess ment of infected s nails are time cons umin g and may not be able to detect prepatent s chis tos omal infections . In the present study two methods were evaluate d for assessment of infected s n a ils . The firs t was detection of S. mansoni s oluble egg antigens (SEA ) in s nail hemolymp h u s in g two murine monoclonal antibodies (M A bs ) in sandwich ELIS A ass ay. The S. mansoni antigens measured in the h e molymph of infected s nails at intervals 1, 2, 3 weeks pos t expos ure to miracidia, at early shedding snails (4,5) weeks a n d after the infected snails stopped shedding. Although the pos itivity, s ens itivit y a n d s pecificity were 100% in the infected control group of s nails , the detection of antigen (s ) was only pos s ible after the second we a k o f miracidial infection. In the second method, genomic DNA of infected snails in addition to non infected (as negative control) w e re s u b je c t e d to nested polymerase chain reaction PCR u s in g primers s pecific to S. mansoni fructos e -1,6-bis phos phate aldolas e (SM A LD O ) g e n e . PCR was able to detect infection (100% s ens itivity) at the 3rd day pos t infection. In spite of the superiority and the higher specificity of the immunodetection for larg s cale detection of prepatency of B. alexandrina s nails infected with S mansoni, the nes ted PCR as s ay revealed much higher s ensitivity which enables 100% detection o f S . ma n soni infection down to 3 days pos t infection. So this as s ay provided higher efficiency for determin a t io n of infection prevalence in snails and schis tos omias is trans mis s ion

Value of dobutamine stress tissue Doppler in evaluation of LV functional improvement after elective PCI

Aim: To clarify the value of dobutamine stress tissue Doppler in the evaluation of LV functional improvement after elective PCI.Methods: The study included 60 patients with hibernating viable myocardium proved by DSE referred for an evaluation of myocardial viability prior to revascularization. Hemodynamic and echocardiographic variables (LVEF, WMSI and TDI Sm) were assessed at rest and during stress. 1 month after PCI follow up echocardiography and TDI were done. Patients were divided into 2 groups: (Group I): 18 patients (30%) with no global functional recovery and (Group II): 42 patients (70%) with global functional recovery.Results: SBP, DPB, HR, EF, WMSI and (Sm) increased significantly at stress P = 0.001. After 1 month patients were divided into 2 groups according to functional recovery. There were no statistically  significant differences between two groups neither as regards age, sex, risk factors (P >0.05) nor as  regards SBP, DBP, HR, rate/pressure product, EF and WMSI during stress but Sm increased during stress and after1 month follow up in Group II (P = 0.001). Univariate regression showed that (Sm) is the only predictor for global functional recovery. ROC curve statistical analysis shows that (Sm) is more sensitive and accurate than (WMSI) in the detection of viable myocardium which predicts improvement after revascularization (sensitivity 100%, 50% and accuracy 93.3%, 83.3% respectively).Conclusion: Stress TDI provides a feasible and quantitative technique that improves reproducibility of DSE. Sm during stress showed better accuracy than WMSI for the prediction of functional recovery following revascularization and was simple, sensitive and accurate for the detection of subtle myocardial systolic velocity changes

Applications of inter simple sequence repeat (ISSR) rDNA in detecting genetic variations in Lymnaea natalensis snails from certain Egyptian Governorates

Inter-simple sequence repeat (ISSR)-PCR technique was used to assess genetic variation and phylogenetic relationships between Lymnaea natalensis collected from Giza, Ismailia, Damietta, and Beheira governorates in Egypt and compared with lab-bred snail in addition to characterization of watercourses from these sites. Five ISSR primers generated 47 amplified bands, of which 63.63% showed high polymorphism. All tested primers detected the common band (approximately 455 bp) in all L. natalensis studied. Three bands (318, 782 and 2013 bp for primers HB8, HB12 and HB13, respectively) are characteristic for L. natalensis collected from Ismailia, El Behira and Damietta governorates, respectively. These markers were used to estimate genetic similarity among the varieties using Jaccard’s similarity coefficient. The similarity matrix was used to construct a dendrogram. The most abundant snails Physa acuta (56.0%) and the lowest abundant snails Planorbis planorbis, and Melanoides tuberculata (0.5) were found associated with L. natalensis in many governorates. Eichhornia crassipes is the only aquatic plant which grows and is found associated with L. natalensis in all canals of governorates. Also, dragon fly is the only macroinvertebrate collected from all canals, then shrimps and true bugs. Heavy metals were detected in water samples of all tested governorates with different significant differences. In conclusion, the present study used for the first time the ISSR PCR technique for studying genetic variations of L. natalensis snails in Egypt. L. natalensis snails can survive when associated with other snails, plants, and insects and can tolerate the heavy metals in water.Keywords: Lymnaea natalensis, inter-simple sequence repeat (ISSR)-PCR, dendrogram, heavy metals, macroinvertebrates.