Conserved peptides within the E2 region of Hepatitis C virus induce humoral and cellular responses in goats

The reason(s) why human antibodies raised against hepatitis C virus (HCV) E2 epitopes do not offer protection against multiple viral infections may be related to either genetic variations among viral strains particularly within the hypervariable region-1 (HVR-1), low titers of anti E2 antibodies or interference of non neutralizing antibodies with the function of neutralizing antibodies. This study was designed to assess the immunogenic properties of genetically conserved peptides derived from the C-terminal region of HVR-1 as potential therapeutic and/or prophylactic vaccines against HCV infection. Goats immunized with E2-conserved synthetic peptides termed p36 (a.a 430–446), p37(a.a 517–531) and p38 (a.a 412–419) generated high titers of anti-p36, anti-p37 and anti-P38 antibody responses of which only anti- p37 and anti- p38 were neutralizing to HCV particles in sera from patients infected predominantly with genotype 4a. On the other hand anti-p36 exhibited weak viral neutralization capacity on the same samples. Animals super-immunized with single epitopes generated 2 to 4.5 fold higher titers than similar antibodies produced in chronic HCV patients. Also the studied peptides elicited approximately 3 fold increase in cell proliferation of specific antibody-secreting peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) from immunized goats. These results indicate that, besides E1 derived peptide p35 (a.a 315–323) described previously by this laboratory, E2 conserved peptides p37 and p38 represent essential components of a candidate peptide vaccine against HCV infection

Assessment of human cytomegalovirus co-infection in Egyptian chronic HCV patients

Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) is the most common cause of severe morbidity and mortality in immune- compromised individuals. This study was conducted to determine the incidence of HCMV infection in HCV patients who either spontaneously cleared the virus or progressed to chronic HCV infection. The study included a total of eighty four cases (48 females and 36 males) that were referred to blood banks for blood donation with an age range of 18-64 years (mean age 37.62 ± 10.03 years). Hepatitis C virus RNA and HCMV DNA were detected in sera by RT-nested PCR and nested PCR respectively in all subjects. Immunoglobulin G levels for HCV and HCMV were determined. Besides, IgM antibodies for HCMV infection were also determined in subjects' sera. Fifty three out of 84 cases (63%) were positive for HCV-RNA while 31 (37%) cases had negative HCV RNA. Forty six (87%) and 13 (25%) cases out of 53 HCV RNA positive patients were positive for HCMV IgG and IgM antibodies respectively. While 20 of 53 cases (38%) had detectable HCMV DNA. To examine the role of HCMV infection in HCV spontaneous resolution, two groups of HCV patients, group 1) chronic HCV infection (positive HCV RNA and positive IgG antibodies) vs group 2) spontaneous resolution (negative HCV RNA and positive IgG antibodies) were compared. The percentages of positive CMV IgG and IgM results is higher in chronic HCV patient than those in spontaneously cleared HCV patients and the difference is highly statistically significant (P value < 0.001). Also, there is a general trend towards elevated levels of CMV IgG antibodies in HCV chronic patients than those in spontaneously cleared HCV patients (P value < 0.02). HCMV DNA detection in group 1 was more than twice the value observed in group 2 (38% vs 14.3%, P value < 0.001). Moreover, levels of liver enzymes were significantly higher in HCV RNA positive cases co-infected with HCMV DNA than HCMV negative cases (P value < 0.001). The results indicate the role of HCMV in the liver pathogenesis. We conclude that chronic HCV patients co-infected with HCMV infection can be regarded as high risk groups for liver disease progression where they should be monitored for the long term outcome of the disease

Spectrofluorometric determination of orphenadrine, dimenhydrinate, and cinnarizine using direct and synchronous techniques with greenness assessment

Abstract Orphenadrine (ORP), dimenhydrinate (DMN), and cinnarizine (CNN) were investigated using green-sensitive spectrofluorometric methods. Method, I used for determination of DMN in 0.1 M hydrochloric acid (HCl) and 1.0% sodium dodecyl sulphate (SDS) at 286 nm after λex 222 nm, while for determination of ORP in 1.0% w/v SDS involves measuring the fluorescence at 285 nm after λex 220 nm. For DMN and ORP, the detection and quantitation limits were 2.99 and 4.71 and 9.08 and 14.29 ng/mL, respectively. The ranges of DMN and ORP were 0.10–1.0 and 0.04–0.5 µg/mL, respectively, in micellar aqueous solution. Method II, the derivative intensities of DMN and CNN were measured at a fixed of different wavelength between the excitation and the emission wavelengths (Δλ) = 60 nm at 282 and 322 nm, at the zero crossing of each other, respectively. The detection and quantitation limits for DMN and CNN were 1.77 and 0.88 ng/mL and 5.36 and 2.65 ng/mL, correspondingly, through the entire range of 0.1–1.0 µg/mL for DMN and CNN. The linearity was perfectly determined through the higher values of the correlation coefficient ranging from 0.9997 to 0.9999 for both direct and synchronous methods. The precision of the proposed methods was also confirmed via the lower values of the standard deviation which ranged from 0.39 to 1.11. The technique was expanded to analyze this mixture in combined tablets and laboratory-prepared mixtures. The method validation was done depending on the international conference on harmonization (ICH) recommendations. An analysis of the statistical data revealed a high agreement between the proposed data and the comparison methodology. Three different assessment methods demonstrated the greenness of the technique

Quantitative assessment of the nature of noncovalent interactions in N-substituted-5-(adamantan-1-yl)-1,3,4-thiadiazole-2-amines: insights from crystallographic and QTAIM analysis

Three adamantane-1,3,4-thiadiazole hybrid derivatives namely; N-ethyl-5-(adamantan-1-yl)-1,3,4-thiadiazole-2-amine I, N-(4-fluorophenyl)-5-(adamantan-1-yl)-1,3,4-thiadiazole-2-amine II and (4-bromophenyl)-5-(adamantan-1-yl)-N-1,3,4-thiadiazole-2-amine III, have been synthesized and crystal structures have been determined at low temperature. The structures revealed that the orientation of the amino group is different in non-halogenated structures. Intra- and intermolecular interactions were characterized on the basis of the quantum theory of atoms-in-molecules (QTAIM) approach. Intermolecular interaction energies for different molecular pairs have been obtained using the PIXEL method. Hirshfeld surface analysis and 2D-fingerprint plots revealed that the relative contributions of different non-covalent interactions are comparable in compounds with halogen (Br and F) substitutions. Crystal structures of II and III show isostructural behaviour with 1D supramolecular constructs. In all three structures, the N–H⋯N hydrogen bond was found to be stronger among other noncovalent interactions. The H–H bonding showed a closed shell in nature and played significant roles in the stabilization of these crystal structures

Production of hydroxy marilone C as a bioactive compound from

Hydroxy marilone C is a bioactive metabolite produced from the culture broth of Streptomyces badius isolated from Egyptian soil. Hydroxy marilone C was purified and fractionated by a silica gel column with a gradient mobile phase dichloromethane (DCM):methanol then Sephadex LH-20 column using methanol as a mobile phase. It was subjected to many procedures such as infrared (IR), nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), Mass spectroscopy (MS) and UV spectroscopy for elucidation of its structure. It was evaluated for antioxidant, cytotoxicity against human alveolar basal epithelial cell line (A-549) and human breast adenocarcinoma cell line (MCF-7) and antiviral activities; showed that the maximum antioxidant activity was 78.8% at 3 mg/ml after 90 min. and the IC50 value against DPPH radical found about 1.5 mg/ml after 60 min. Using MTT assay the effect of the pure compound on the proliferation of A-549 cells and MCF-7 cells was 443 μg/ml and 147.9 μg/ml, respectively, while for detection of antiviral activity using Madin–Darby canine kidney (MDCK) cells the maximum cytotoxicity was at 27.9% and IC50 was 128.1 μg/ml. The maximum concentration required for protecting 50% of the virus-infected cells against H1N1 viral cytopathogenicity (EC50) was 33.25% for 80 μg/ml. These results indicated that the hydroxy marilone C has potential antitumor and antiviral activities