Recombinant α-actinin subunit antigens of Trichomonas vaginalis as potential vaccine candidates in protecting against trichomoniasis

BACKGROUND: Human trichomoniasis caused by Trichomonas vaginalis is one of the most common sexually transmitted diseases with more than 200 million cases worldwide. It has caused a series of health problems to patients. For prevention and control of infectious diseases, vaccines are usually considered as one of the most cost-efficient tools. However, until now, work on the development of T. vaginalis vaccines is still mainly focused on the screening of potential immunogens. Alpha-actinin characterized by high immunogenicity in T. vaginalis was suggested as a promising candidate. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the protective potency of recombinant α-actinin against T. vaginalis infection in a mouse intraperitoneal model. METHODS: Two selected coding regions of α-actinin (ACT-F, 14-469 aa and ACT-T, 462-844 aa) amplified from cDNA were cloned into pET-32a (+) expression vector and transfected into BL21 cells. After induction with IPTG and purification with electroelution, the two recombinant fusion proteins were emulsified in Freund's adjuvant (FA) and used to immunize BALB/C mice. Following intraperitoneal inoculation with T. vaginalis, the survival rate of mice was monitored for the assessment of protective potency. After immunization, the antibody level in mouse serum was assessed by ELISA, splenocyte proliferation response was detected with CCK8 and cytokines in the supernatant of splenocytes were quantified with a cytometric bead-based assay. RESULTS: We successfully obtained purified ACT-F (70.33 kDa) and ACT-T (61.7kDa). Both recombinant proteins could provide significant protection against T. vaginalis challenge, especially ACT-T (with 100% protection within one month). Meanwhile, high levels of specific total IgG and subtypes (IgG1 > IgG2a) were detected in sera from the immunized mice. Our results also revealed a statistically significant increase in splenocyte proliferation and related cytokine (IFN-γ, IL-6, IL-17A and IL-10) production after repeated stimulation with the corresponding antigens in vitro. CONCLUSIONS: Immunization with both ACT-F and ACT-T could confer partial to complete protection and trigger strong Th1/Th2 mixed humoral and cellular immune responses in the mouse host. This suggested that recombinant α-actinin subunit antigens may be promising vaccine candidates against trichomoniasis

Challenges of anti-smoking campaign in Malaysia from the healthcare provider perspective

This study discovered challenging of the anti-smoking campaign from the perspective of healthcare providers in Kuantan. The objectives of this study were to explore the challenges of the anti-smoking campaign from healthcare providers’ views, to explore the awareness regarding the existence of Smoking Cessation Clinics and to explore the ways to improve anti-smoking campaigns. This study is important because it may aid Malaysian authorities to develop better strategies in promoting anti-smoking campaigns in the future. Purposive sampling was used in the collection of data and semi-structured interviews were conducted among five healthcare providers from three selected Smoking Cessation Clinics. This study found that healthcare provider felt that smokers who received treatment from the Health Centre had low understanding of the standard of procedure of smoking cessation procedure, low commitment and easily influenced by the public. Healthcare provider also felt that multidisciplinary task limited their focus to the client. Besides, they felt that the existence of smoking Cessation Clinic needs to be widely publicised to the community. Through the findings, the author recommend to improve the current approaches to reduce the number of smokers in Malaysia such as improving publicity to the public, enhancing the law of enforcement and providing incentives

A qualitative study: the perception on anti-smoking campaign among smokers in Kuantan

Smoking is an inevitably unhealthy habit among Malaysian that could harm not only the smokers but also the community. Even though there are a lot of anti-smoking campaign had been introduced by the government but the effectiveness is still marginal. Thus, the objectives of this study were to explore the main factor related to the failure of anti-smoking campaign in Malaysia, to explore the effectiveness of “Smoking Cessation Clinic” and to discover the best solution to ensure the campaign is effective in the future. This is a qualitative cross-sectional study. Interviews were conducted among five voluntary respondents which were smokers and ex-smoker at Public area and selected smoking cessation clinics in Kuantan. This study used thematic analysis to analyse the data. This study found that few contributing factors from the perspective of smokers need to be prioritised by higher authority for improvements. Those contribution factors are minimal creativity on managing anti-smoking promotion, low self-awareness about health, demand on energizer at workplace and poor stress management. Findings recommend that the campaign shall start from primary and secondary school, improvise warning sign of disease, widening the promotion area, provides reward during campaign and smokers to take initiative to involve in the program. Furthermore, the government also needs to focus on the prevention of start smoking rather than the intervention to quit smoking that may cost lots of financial demand