The Problem of Mixing up of Leishmania Isolates in the Laboratory: Suggestion of ITS1 Gene Sequencing for Verification of Species

Background: Leishmaniasis is endemic in Iran. Different species of Leishmania (L.) parasites are causative agents of this disease. Correct identification of Leishmania species is important for clinical studies,prevention, and control of the diseases. Mix up of Leishmania isolates is possible in the laboratory, so there is need for verification of species for isolates of uncertain identity. Different methods may be used for this purpose including isoenzyme electrophoresis and molecular methods. The isoenzyme lectrophoresis, due to its drawbacks, is feasible only in specialized laboratories while molecular methods may be more feasible. The aim of this research was to study the application of the internal transcribedspacer 1 (ITS1) sequencing method, in comparison to isoenzyme electrophoresis method, for verification of Leishmania species.Methods: Six Leishmania isolates were received from different research institutions in Iran. The species of these isolates were known by donating institution according to their isoenzyme profile. The species of these isolates were re-identified in Pasteur Institute of Iran by PCR amplification of ITS1 followed bysequencing and comparison of these sequences with Leishmania sequences in GenBank. Isoenzyme electrophoresis was performed for confirmation of the results of ITS1.Results: ITS1 sequence showed that some isolates were mixed up or contaminated with Crithidia. Isoenzyme electrophoresis confirmed the results of ITS1 sequences.Conclusion: ITS1 sequencing is relatively more feasible than the traditional isoenzyme electrophoresismethod and is suggested for verification of Leishmania species

Plate Wave Propagation in Transversely Isotropic Materials

In this work, the modes of plate wave propagation in a fiber reinforced com posite (assumed to be transversely isotropic) were investigated. The waves were modeled as harmonic plane waves propagating in the plane of an infinite plate whose bounding sur faces were assumed to be stress free. A numerical analysis procedure was developed to calculate the dispersion relationships for plate waves propagating in arbitrary directions in the plate. Particle displacements and stress distributions were calculated for several im portant propagation modes. Possible applications to nondestructive testing of composites are discussed.Yeshttps://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/manuscript-submission-guideline

The association between HPV gene expression, inflammatory agents and cellular genes involved in EMT in lung cancer tissue

BACKGROUND: Lung cancer is a leading cause of cancer morbidity and mortality worldwide. Several studies have suggested that Human papillomavirus (HPV) infection is an important risk factor in the development of lung cancer. In this study, we aim to address the role of HPV in the development of lung cancer mechanistically by examining the induction of inflammation and epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) by this virus. METHODS: In this case-control study, tissue samples were collected from 102 cases with lung cancer and 48 controls. We examined the presence of HPV DNA and also the viral genotype in positive samples. We also examined the expression of viral genes (E2, E6 and E7), anti-carcinogenic genes (p53, retinoblastoma (RB)), and inflammatory cytokines in HPV positive cases. RESULTS: HPV DNA was detected in 52.9 (54/102) of the case samples and in 25 (12/48) of controls. A significant association was observed between a HPV positive status and lung cancer (OR�=�3.37, 95 C.I�=�1.58-7.22, P�=�0.001). The most prevalent virus genotype in the patients was type 16 (38.8). The expression of p53 and RB were decreased while and inflammatory cytokines were increased in HPV-positive lung cancer and HPV-positive control tissues compared to HPV-negative lung cancer and HPV-negative control tissues. Also, the expression level of E-cad and PTPN-13 genes were decreased in HPV- positive samples while the expression level of SLUG, TWIST and N-cad was increased in HPV-positive samples compared to negative samples. CONCLUSION: Our study suggests that HPV infection drives the induction of inflammation and EMT which may promote in the development of lung cancer

The role of viral and bacterial infections in the pathogenesis of IPF: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Background: Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a chronic progressive lung disease. Several risk factors such as smoking, air pollution, inhaled toxins, high body mass index and infectious agents are involved in the pathogenesis of IPF. In the present study, this meta-analysis study investigates the prevalence of viral and bacterial infections in the IPF patients and any possible association between these infections with pathogenesis of IPF. Methods: The authors carried out this systematic literature review from different reliable databases such as PubMed, ISI Web of Science, Scopus and Google Scholar to December 2020.Keywords used were the following �Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis�, �Infection�, �Bacterial Infection� and �Viral Infection�, alone or combined together with the Boolean operators "OR�, �AND� and �NOT� in the Title/Abstract/Keywords field. Pooled proportion and its 95 CI were used to assess the prevalence of viral and bacterial infections in the IPF patients. Results: In this systematic review and meta-analyses, 32 studies were selected based on the exclusion/inclusion criteria. Geographical distribution of included studies was: eight studies in American people, 8; in European people, 15 in Asians, and one in Africans. The pooled prevalence for viral and bacterial infections w ere 53.72 (95 CI 38.1�69.1) and 31.21 (95 CI 19.9�43.7), respectively. The highest and lowest prevalence of viral infections was HSV (77.7 95 CI 38.48�99.32), EBV (72.02, 95 CI 44.65�90.79) and Influenza A (7.3, 95 CI 2.66�42.45), respectively. Whereas the highest and lowest prevalence in bacterial infections were related to Streptococcus sp. (99.49, 95 CI 96.44�99.9) and Raoultella (1.2, 95 CI 0.2�3.08), respectively. Conclusions: The results of this review were confirmed that the presence of viral and bacterial infections are the risk factors in the pathogenesis of IPF. In further analyses, which have never been shown in the previous studies, we revealed the geographic variations in the association strengths and emphasized other methodological parameters (e.g., detection method). Also, our study supports the hypothesis that respiratory infection could play a key role in the pathogenesis of IP. © 2021, The Author(s)

Nanotechnology in pulmonary medicine

Nanotechnology in medicine—nanomedicine—is extensively employed to diagnose, treat, and prevent pulmonary diseases. Over the last few years, this brave new world has made remarkable progress, offering opportunities to address historical clinical challenges in pulmonary diseases including multidrug resistance, adverse side effects of conventional therapeutic agents, novel imaging, and earlier disease detection. Nanomedicine is also being applied to tackle the new emerging infectious diseases, including severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV), Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV), influenza A virus subtype H1N1 (A/H1N1), and more recently, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). In this review we provide both a historical overview of the application of nanomedicine to respiratory diseases and more recent cutting-edge approaches such as nanoparticle-mediated combination therapies, novel double-targeted nondrug delivery system for targeting, stimuli-responsive nanoparticles, and theranostic imaging in the diagnosis and treatment of pulmonary diseases. © 2020 The Author(s

Anesthetic Management of Total Traumatic Avulsion of Mandible

A healthy 34 year old man was referred to the operating room for the repair of his totally avulsed lower jaw. He did not tolerate the supine position and always maintained a sitting position to keep his airway open. The patient was successfully managed with a special anesthetic technique to overcome his airway problem and to intubate him. Keywords: Airway Obstruction, Mandibular Avulsion, Difficult Airway, Difficult Intubatio

Reduction of shear modulus at small strains in simple shear

Cyclic tests were conducted to study the secant shear modulus, G\ds, of two reconstituted sands and three laboratory-made clays at small cyclic shear-strain amplitudes γ\dc≈0.0006%–0.02%. A recently developed direct simple shear device for small-strain testing was employed. The effects of cyclic strain amplitude (γ\dc), type of soil and plasticity index (PI), vertical effective consolidation stress (σ’v+c), and overconsolidation ratio (OCR) were investigated. The results show that the ordinates of the normalized shear modulus reduction curve, Gs/Gmax–γ\dc, generally increase as σ’v\dc and OCR increase. However, these effects of σ’v\dc and OCR become smaller and may eventually disappear as the PI of the soil increases

Small-strain cyclic behavior of Augusta clay in simple shear

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