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Articles
by
N. Amirmozafari |
Total Records (
2 ) for
N. Amirmozafari |
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N. Amirmozafari
,
R. Mirnejad
,
B. Kazemi
,
E. Sariri
,
M.R. Bojari
and
F. Dehdar Darkahi
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The aim of this investigation was to simultaneously
detect Mycoplasma hominis, Mycoplasma genitalium and Ureaplasma
urealyticum in female patients suffering from genital complications
(vaginitis, cervicitis and PID) by PCR. Genital swabs were collected from
210 female patients and subsequently suspended in PBS. Following DNA extraction,
PCR assay were performed, using a genus specific primer pair. These primer
set, which were originally designed in our laboratory, amplified a 465
bp fragment (M. genitalium), 559 bp fragments (U. urealyticum)
and 630 bp fragment (M. hominis). Samples containing bands of the
expected size for mycoplasma strains were subjected to digestion with
restriction endonuclease enzyme. Of the 210 genital swabs tested, 120
sample (57.1%) showed positive reactions in PCR. Sixty eight samples were
positive for Ureaplasma sp. (32.3%), 28 for Mycoplasma sp.
(13.3%) and 25 samples had mixed infections (11.9%). In case where specific
primers were utilized, PCR has proved to be a simple, fast and relatively
inexpensive method for simultaneous detection of all three clinically
important genital mycoplasmas. |
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N. Amirmozafari
,
F. Ghazi
,
A. Mostafazadeh
,
A. Mostafaie
and
R. Rajabnia
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Heat shock protein (hsp) is highly conserved, that
serves a wide range of function in protein folding and transport. It protect
from various type of stress including heat shocks. However, it is well
known that the virulence of B. melitensis is more than B. abortus,
but there is not any strong evidence to verify it. For this purpose, in
refer to potent antigenicity of hsps in various infectious as well as
some hsp molecules act as potent activator of macrophage (danger signal),
we hypothesized that difference in virulence between B. abortus
and B. melitensis may be originated from difference in pattern
of response to heat shock induced by high degree of fever that usually
present in brucellosis. To this end, five B. abortus and five B.
melitensis strains isolated from cows and human, were subjected to
39, 40 and 42 ° C heat shocks. The bacterial whole cell proteins were
extracted and resolved by SDS-PAGE. Western blotting was used to detect
antibody production against the extracted bacterial proteins especially
hsp60 in both control and patient sera. SDS-PAGE gels revealed protein
bands mainly in the range of 10-100 kDa. The amounts of a 60 kDa protein
band (hsp60) was significantly enhanced following heat shock at 42 ° C
in relation to the unheated cells in both bacterial species. The heat
shock responses in B. abortus and B. melitensis point to
the higher production of a 60 kDa protein (hsp60) in both bacterial species,
especially in B. abortus. It seems that, lower hsp60 production
by B. melitensis would induce a relatively much lower immune response
against the bacterium leading to its greater virulence potentials; the
sera from Brucellosis patients reacted with several of these cell derived
protein bands in western blots, none of which were reactive with sera
from healthy individuals. The western blot protein bands showed striking
differences. This observation points to the immunogenic properties of
hsps, specially the overwhelming response to hsp-60. Therefore, hsp-60
can be a good antigenic candidate for engineering subunit vaccine against
Brucella, as well as for ELISA test development. |
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