Iranian women’s experiences of infertility: A qualitative study

Background: There are concerns and diverse experiences related to infertility and childlessness. The lived experience of infertile people from various cultures needs to be explored. Objective: The aim of this qualitative study was to explore Iranian women experiences of their infertility. Materials and Methods: The data comprised interviews about fertility issues in the Persian language with eighteen women, aged 17-45 yr old, who agreed to be interviewed at the Mottahari Infertility Treatment Clinic, affiliated to the Urmia University of Medical Sciences about their fertility problems. They were approached by the researchers at the time of their first visit. The verbatim transcribed interviews were analyzed using deductive conventional content analysis. Results: The experiences of the informants were conceptualized into four major themes: 1) Shock (subthemes: Disbelief and Denial); 2) Reaction (subthemes: Distress, Guilt, Loss of self-esteem and Sexual reluctance); 3) Processing (subthemes: Internal processing, Avoidance, Marriage at risk, External processing, Stigma caused by the family and Stigma caused by the community) and 4) Reorientation (subthemes: Forgetting, Marriage to saving marriage and Sexual consent). Conclusion: Infertility can be a challenging condition. Considering that infertilityrelated issues affect Iranian women more contextual factors is necessary. So, culturally sensitive and gender specific protocols are suggested to provide suitable and about culturally sensitive and genderspecific protocols is a necessity in order to provide suitable care to infertile women. Key words: Iran, Women, Infertility, Qualitative

The study of association between reduced folate carrier 1 (RFC1) polymorphism and non-syndromic cleft lip/palate in Iranian population

Introduction: Cleft lip/palate is one of the most common congenital defects and is supposed to have multifactorial etiology, including a complex interaction between genetics and environment. Reduced folate carrier 1 (RFC1) gene takes part in folate transportation within the cells. In this study, the association of A80G polymorphism in the RFC1 gene with the non-syndromic cleft lip/palate (nsCL/P) was investigated in Iranian infants for the first time. Methods: In this case-control survey, 122 Iranian infants with nsCL/P and 164 healthy infants were investigated for RFC1 polymorphism by PCR and RFLP methods. The results were statistically compared with control group, odds ratios with 95% CI were estimated by univariate and multivariate logistic regression model and a P <0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: The RFC1 G allele was significantly higher (P=0.001; OR=7, 95% CI: 4.7-10.2) in the cases (60.3%) compared with the controls (17.9%). Not only the RFC1 AG genotype was significantly higher (P<0.001; OR=44, 95% CI: 14.6-133) in cases (67.8%) than the controls (27.4%), but also GG genotype (P<0.001; OR=85, 95% CI: 20.5-352) was much higher in cases (26.4%) than the controls (4.3%). Conclusion: Our study indicated that the RFC1 (A80G) polymorphism was associated with the nsCL/P in Iranian population. Moreover, 80GG homozygosity was significant in the cases. The presence of G allele can be considered as a risk factor for the nsCL/P. Infants with the GG and AG genotypes were more prone to cleft lip/palate as compared to the AA ones. This finding emphasizes the role of RFC1 gene and the intracellular levels of folate

Prognostic and diagnostic values of non-coding RNAs as biomarkers for breast cancer: An umbrella review and pan-cancer analysis

Background: Breast cancer (BC) is the most common cancer in women. The incidence and morbidity of BC are expected to rise rapidly. The stage at which BC is diagnosed has a significant impact on clinical outcomes. When detected early, an overall 5-year survival rate of up to 90% is possible. Although numerous studies have been conducted to assess the prognostic and diagnostic values of non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) in breast cancer, their overall potential remains unclear. In this field of study, there are various systematic reviews and meta-analysis studies that report volumes of data. In this study, we tried to collect all these systematic reviews and meta-analysis studies in order to re-analyze their data without any restriction to breast cancer or non-coding RNA type, to make it as comprehensive as possible.Methods: Three databases, namely, PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science (WoS), were searched to find any relevant meta-analysis studies. After thoroughly searching, the screening of titles, abstracts, and full-text and the quality of all included studies were assessed using the AMSTAR tool. All the required data including hazard ratios (HRs), sensitivity (SENS), and specificity (SPEC) were extracted for further analysis, and all analyses were carried out using Stata.Results: In the prognostic part, our initial search of three databases produced 10,548 articles, of which 58 studies were included in the current study. We assessed the correlation of non-coding RNA (ncRNA) expression with different survival outcomes in breast cancer patients: overall survival (OS) (HR = 1.521), disease-free survival (DFS) (HR = 1.33), recurrence-free survival (RFS) (HR = 1.66), progression-free survival (PFS) (HR = 1.71), metastasis-free survival (MFS) (HR = 0.90), and disease-specific survival (DSS) (HR = 0.37). After eliminating low-quality studies, the results did not change significantly. In the diagnostic part, 22 articles and 30 datasets were retrieved from 8,453 articles. The quality of all studies was determined. The bivariate and random-effects models were used to assess the diagnostic value of ncRNAs. The overall area under the curve (AUC) of ncRNAs in differentiated patients is 0.88 (SENS: 80% and SPEC: 82%). There was no difference in the potential of single and combined ncRNAs in differentiated BC patients. However, the overall potential of microRNAs (miRNAs) is higher than that of long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs). No evidence of publication bias was found in the current study. Nine miRNAs, four lncRNAs, and five gene targets showed significant OS and RFS between normal and cancer patients based on pan-cancer data analysis, demonstrating their potential prognostic value.Conclusion: The present umbrella review showed that ncRNAs, including lncRNAs and miRNAs, can be used as prognostic and diagnostic biomarkers for breast cancer patients, regardless of the sample sources, ethnicity of patients, and subtype of breast cancer

Introduce a novel post-biotic against Pseudomonas aeruginosa biofilm formation using Escherchia coli Nissle1917 outer membrane vesicles

Abstract Pseudomonas aeruginosa is an opportunistic bacterial pathogen that can cause acute infections as well as chronic ones in humans. The expression of algD and PpyR genes involved in biofilm formation in clinical isolates of P. aeruginosa in the presence of Escherichia coli Nissle1917 outer membranes vesicles (EcN OMVs) was evaluated. All isolates were tested for biofilm formation. qPCR and disk diffusion were used to identify the expression of algD and PpyR genes, and antimicrobial resistance, respectively. EcN OMVs caused a more significant loss of algD and PpyR expression, compared with the control group. EcN OMVs contain a variety of biomolecules that are capable of influencing the biofilm formation genes. EcN OMVs treatment reduced P. aeruginosa biofilm formation significantly, which emphasizes their positive role in inhibiting biofilm formation. As a result, EcN OMVs can be used as new therapeutic strategies for inhibiting P. aeruginosa biofilm formation

Parental cigarette smoking, transforming growth factor-alpha gene variant and the risk of orofacial cleft in Iranian infants

Objective(s):We investigated the influence of genetic variation of the transforming growth-factor alpha (TGFA) locus on the relationship between smoking and oral clefts. Materials and methods:In this study 105 Iranian infants with non-syndromic cleft lip/palate and 218 controls with non-cleft birth defects were examined to test for associations among maternal exposures, genetic markers, and oral clefts. Maternal and parental smoking histories during pregnancy were obtained through questionnaire. DNA was extracted from newborn screening blood samples, and genotyping of the BamHI polymorphism in the TGFA gene was performed by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) methods. A number of factors including gender of the newborns, type of oral cleft, consanguinity of the parents, as well as the mother’s age and education were evaluated as potential confounders and effect modifiers. Results: Maternal smoking, in the absence of paternal smoking, was associated with an increased risk for CL/P (OR = 19.2, 95% CI = [(6.2-59.5)])   and cleft palate only (OR =48.7, 95% CI = [(8-29.3)]). If both parents smoked, risks were generally greater (OR = 55.6, 95% CI = [12-20.25]). Analyses for the risk of clefting from maternal smoking, stratified by the presence or absence of the TGFA/BamH1variant, revealed that the risk of clefting among the infants with the TGFA/BamH1 variant when their mothers smoked cigarettes was much greater than the infants who had non-smoker mothers (P=0.001, OR=10.4,95% CI=[3.2,33.6]). Conclusion:The results of this study indicate that first-trimester maternal smoking and infant TGFA locus mutations are both associated with nonsyndromic cleft lip and/or palate (CL/P)

A Novel Hybrid Artificial Bee Colony-Based Deep Convolutional Neural Network to Improve the Detection Performance of Backscatter Communication Systems

2023 Descuento MDPIBackscatter communication (BC) is a promising technology for low-power and low-data-rate applications, though the signal detection performance is limited since the backscattered signal is usually much weaker than the original signal. When the detection performance is poor, the backscatter device (BD) may not be able to accurately detect and interpret the incoming signal, leading to errors and degraded communication quality. This can result in data loss, slow data transfer rates, and reduced reliability of the communication link. This paper proposes a novel approach to improve the detection performance of backscatter communication systems using evolutionary deep learning. In particular, we focus on training deep convolutional neural networks (DCNNs) to improve the detection performance of BC. We first develop a novel hybrid algorithm based on artificial bee colony (ABC), biogeography-based optimization (BBO), and particle swarm optimization (PSO) to optimize the architecture of the DCNN, followed by training using a large set of benchmark datasets. To develop the hybrid ABC, the migration operator of the BBO is used to improve the exploitation. Moving towards the global best of PSO is also proposed to improve the exploration of the ABC. Then, we take advantage of the proposed deep architecture to improve the bit-error rate (BER) performance of the studied BC system. The simulation results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm has the best performance in training the benchmark datasets. The results also show that the proposed approach significantly improves the detection performance of backscattered signals compared to existing worksDepto. de Física de MaterialesFac. de Ciencias FísicasTRUEpubDescuento UC

Different T cell related immunological profiles in COVID‐19 patients compared to healthy controls

In various pathological conditions, cellular immunity plays an important role in immune responses. Among immune cells, T lymphocytes pdomote cellular and humoral responses as well as innate immunity. Therefore, careful investigation of these cells has a significant impact on accurate knowledge in COVID-19 disease pathogenesis. In current research, the frequency and function of various T lymphocytes involved in immune responses examined in SARS‐CoV-2 patients with various disease severity compared to normal subjects. In order to make an accurate comparison among patients with various disease severity, this study was performed on asymptomatic recovered cases (n = 20), ICU hospitalized patients (n = 30), non-ICU hospitalized patients (n = 30), and normal subjects (n = 20). To precisely evaluate T cells activity following purification, their cytokine secretion activity was examined. Similarly, immediately after purification of Treg cells, their inhibitory activity on T cells was investigated. The results showed that COVID-19 patients with severe disease (ICU hospitalized patients) not only had a remarkable increase in Th1 and Th17 but also a considerable decrease in Th2 and Treg cells. More importantly, as the IL-17 and IFN-γ secretion was sharply increased in severe disease, the secretion of IL-10 and IL-4 was decreased. Furthermore, the inhibitory activity of Treg cells was reduced in severe disease patients in comparison to other groups. In severe COVID-19 disease, current findings indicate when the inflammatory arm of cellular immunity is significantly increased, a considerable reduction in anti-inflammatory and regulatory arm occurred