Immunogenicity evaluation of a DNA vaccine expressing the hepatitis C virus non-structural protein 2 gene in C57BL/6 Mice

Backgrounds: Most of the hepatitis C virus (HCV) infections elicit poor immune responses and 75% to 85% of cases become chronic; therefore, the development of an effective vaccine against HCV is of paramount importance. In this study, we aimed to evaluate co-administration of HCV non-Structural Protein 2 and IL-12 DNA vaccines in C57BL/6 mice. Methods: A plasmid encoding full-length HCV NS2 protein (non-structural protein 2) was generated and used to vaccinate mice. Negative control (an empty expression vector) was also employed to evaluate the background response. To investigate immune responses against vaccine, C57BL/6 mice received three doses of the vaccine with a two-week interval. Cellular immunity was assessed using 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyl tetrazolium bromide assay for lymphocyte proliferation, lactate dehydrogenase release for cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) activity and cytokine assay. Results: The findings demonstrated that immunization of mice with plasmid expressing HCV NS2 induced CTL response, interferon gamma production, and lymphocyte proliferation compared to negative control. The results also demonstrated that co-administration of IL-12 with the HCV NS2 plasmid induced significantly better immune response in C57BL/6 mice. Conclusion: DNA vaccine encoding HCV NS2 is an effective candidate that can trigger CTL-based immune response against HCV. In addition, the results suggested that combining the DNA vaccine approach with immune stimulatory cytokines may significantly enhance antigen-specific immune responses

Managing the security of nursing data in the electronic health record

Background: The Electronic Health Record (EHR) is a patient care information resource for clinicians and nursing documentation is an essential part of comprehensive patient care. Ensuring privacy and the security of health information is a key component to building the trust required to realize the potential benefits of electronic health information exchange. This study was aimed to manage nursing data security in the EHR and also discover the viewpoints of hospital information system vendors (computer companies) and hospital information technology specialists about nursing data security. Methods: This research is a cross sectional analytic-descriptive study. The study populations were IT experts at the academic hospitals and computer companies of Tehran city in Iran. Data was collected by a self-developed questionnaire whose validity and reliability were confirmed using the experts' opinions and Cronbach's alpha coefficient respectively. Data was analyzed through Spss Version 18 and by descriptive and analytic statistics. Results: The findings of the study revealed that user name and password were the most important methods to authenticate the nurses, with mean percent of 95 and 80, respectively, and also the most significant level of information security protection were assigned to administrative and logical controls. There was no significant difference between opinions of both groups studied about the levels of information security protection and security requirements (p>0.05). Moreover the access to servers by authorized people, periodic security update, and the application of authentication and authorization were defined as the most basic security requirements from the viewpoint of more than 88 percent of recently-mentioned participants. Conclusions: Computer companies as system designers and hospitals information technology specialists as systems users and stakeholders present many important views about security requirements for EHR systems and nursing electronic documentation systems. Prioritizing of these requirements helps policy makers to decide what to do when planning for EHR implementation. Therefore, to make appropriate security decisions and to achieve the expected level of protection of the electronic nursing information, it is suggested to consider the priorities of both groups of experts about security principles and also discuss the issues seem to be different between two groups of participants in the research. © 2015 Mahnaz Samadbeik, Zahra Gorzin, Masomeh Khoshkam, Masoud Roudbari

First report of human parvovirus 4 detection in Iran

Parvovirus 4 (PARV4) is an emerging and intriguing virus that currently received many attentions. High prevalence of PARV4 infection in high-risk groups such as HIV infected patients highlights the potential clinical outcomes that this virus might have. Molecular techniques were used to determine both the presence and the genotype of circulating PARV4 on previously collected serum samples from 133 HIV infected patients and 120 healthy blood donors. Nested PCR was applied to assess the presence of PARV4 DNA genome in both groups. PARV4 DNA was detected in 35.3 of HIV infected patients compared to 16.6 healthy donors. To genetically characterize the PARV4 genotype in these groups, positive samples were randomly selected and subjected for sequencing and phylogenetic analysis. All PARV4 sequences were found to be genotype 1 and clustered with the reference sequences of PARV4 genotype 1. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc