Abstract Candida albicans is a commensal fungal pathogen that grows in yeast and hyphal forms in the human gut. C. albicans causes mucosal and cutaneous diseases that can result in significant mortality following systematic infections and it also exhibits drug resistance. Zebrafish have been an excellent model to investigate C. albicans infections because of their transparency and the availability of many transgenic lines. However, there is a limitation in using zebrafish as a model because the fish embryos cannot survive at 37°C therefore it is not suitable for studying Candida infections at physiological relevant human body temperature. In this thesis, the normal embryonic development of Arabian killifish (A. dispar) is investigated, revealing that embryogenesis was divided into 32 stages based on diagnostic patterns of development. A. dispar can also found to tolerate a wide range of temperatures and salinities. This suggests that A. dispar could be developed as a novel model to investigate host-pathogen interactions. The tolerance of A. dispar to high temperatures may in part be attributable to brown pigment cells with a highly fluorescent character that may have developed to allow the fish to adapt to live within extreme environmental conditions with strong sunlight and a wide range of temperatures (Chapter 3). In terms of Candida infections, this study examined A. dispar as a model to test C. albicans pathogenicity. The survival of A. dispar embryos following Candida infection showed a dose dependent relationship. We also found that A. dispar can survive longer than zebrafish after infection. Furthermore, C. albicans cells were observed to undergo a transition from yeast to hyphae at 37°C. An investigation of the ability of mutant strains of C. albicans with defects in cell wall mannosylation revealed a significant impact on virulence, host mortality, and the fishes’ immune response. The present study found that although the deletion of O- and N-mannan from the cell wall of C. albicans, affected fungal burden (attenuation), and the survival of the infected embryos per se was significantly decreased in the infections of the mutant strains compared to the WT. This data confirms the importance of the mannosylation state of the cell wall in triggering an immune recognition event (Chapter 4). A. dispar is also shown to be suitable for studying the effectiveness of 3 | P a g e antifungals. Fluconazole treatment of infected embryos and eggs promoted greater rates of survival at high doses, alongside a significant reduction of C. albicans CFUs (Chapter 4). When looking at the Candida-host interaction, we directly observed phagocytosed yeast cells within macrophages. Various detection methods were used to follow macrophages and neutrophils including Western blotting, immunostaining and histological staining (Sudan black and FITC-tyramide) allowing the monitoring of the time course of the immune cells. A biphasic response of macrophages was detected by L-plastin Western blotting, suggesting activation of two different type of macrophage: activated macrophage (M1) and alternative macrophage (M2). We also assayed reactive oxygen species (ROS) within infected embryos using a fluorescent probe (H2DCFDA), revealing the accumulation of the fluorescent probe at the sites of infection. Quantitative and qualitative analyses of the oxidative and immune response using the H2DCFDA and qPCR were also accomplished within A. dispar embryos after infection with both the WT and mutant strains of Candida albicans (WT, pmr1∆, mnt1-mnt2∆, and och1∆). The results confirmed that the mutant strains did not activate a host oxidative stress response nor immune cell accumulation when compared to WT, suggesting that the immune response is less activated against these mutants. Finally, a new transgenic line of A. dispar fish was developed using Betaactin-DsR-LoxP-GFP. The new transgenic A. dispar is suggested to be an ideal model for real time observation of host-pathogen interactions and for investigation of molecular functions of the immune response. Overall these results improve our understanding of the use of a new transparent fish model to study fungal pathogenesis and demonstrates the potential advantages of using this species in future studies of bacterial, fungal and viral pathogens at a physiologically relevant temperature for human infection. Such a model could lead us to investigate in more depth the key interactions between pathogens and their host and permit the screening and development of new antifungal therapies (that might target the pathogens directly or target the host immune system). View full metadata
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Praise be to God, Lord of the Worlds, and prayers and peace be upon the most honorable of creation, Muhammad, whom God sent as a mercy to the worlds, and his pure God and his faithful companions. The Islamic heritage was replete with texts issued from among the pure infallibility, which constituted a prominent teacher that takes the student to stop there in search of its goals, purposes and beauty. The choice was made from those texts that were issued by the imams of Muslims in the Abbasid era, namely Imam Muhammad al-Jawad, his son Imam Ali al-Hadi and his grandson Imam Hassan Zaki al-Askari. (Peace be upon them), and scholars have called them (sons of satisfaction), and researchers have shed light on these texts from rhetorical, artistic
... Show MoreToday, the five Caspian riparian states on the shores of the Caspian Sea (Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Russia, and Iran) have become a front for ambitions and international and regional competition, especially in light of the features and characteristics that natural geography has endowed them with and their enjoyment of a group of economic and mineral wealth that are not optimally exploited so far which made it a strategic attraction area for international trends and interventions, especially Western ones. It is a battleground for major international companies aiming to monopolize promising industrial investments in order to impose control and influence on the region’s resources and economic wealth and thus impose their forei
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Takbiratul Ehram "The First Takbeer to Start Prayer" means: the words that the worshiper says to start his prayers, and refrain from anything invalidates it. the findings revealed that the four school jurists agreed that the prayer is not valid without Takbiratul Ehram "The First Takbeer to Start Prayer", and they disagreed on its description, so the majority of jurists said that it is a pillar, and some of them called it an obligatory, but Hanafi made it a condition. Likewise, the four jurists agreed that the one who articulates Takbiratul Ehram "The First Takbeer to Start Prayer" with the word: “Allahu Akbar,”; his Takbeer is correct, and they disagreed about the one who adds a word, or replaced it with another, where the m
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Whatever the designers of the advertisement in choosing the text and spoken phrases, those phrases cannot give or convey the full meaning to the recipient only if this spoken and written language is reinforced with another language based on the signals, movements, and symbols that are displayed using the body or other artistic elements of the advertisement such as pictures, colors, music, effects, and other elements used in the artistic construction of television advertising. All these artistic elements contribute to the completion of the advertising idea and make it ready to be displayed to the public.
Scientists and researchers, in the field of psychology, have relied a lot on this language (body language). And some of them put
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Purpose: The concept of complete street is one of the modern trends concerned with diversifying means of transportation and reducing the disadvantages of mechanical transportation modes. This paper discusses the role of complete streets can play in developing the urban environment in the Alyarmok District of Baghdad. Method/design/approach: The linear regression method used to analyze the opinions of 100 respondents surveyed in the study area in order to find the relationship between the urban environment and the complete street elements. Theoretical framework: The Modern trends in urban planning aim to find alternatives to the policies of traditional transportation planning that focus on vehicular mobi
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In this study an experimental work was done to study the possibility of using aluminum rubbish material as a coagulant to remove the colloidal particles from oily wastewater by dissolving this rubbish in sodium hydroxide solution. The experiments were carried out on simulated oily wastewater that was prepared at different oil concentrations and hardness levels (50, 250, 500, and 1000) ppm oil for (2000, 2500, 3000, and 3500) ppm CaCo3 respectively. The initial turbidity values were (203, 290, 770, and 1306) NTU, while the minimum values of turbidity that have been gained from the experiments in NTU units were (1.67, 1.95, 2.10, and 4.01) at best sodium aluminate dosages in milliliters (12, 20, 24, and 28) for
... Show MoreBackground: In the past, an association between Tuberculosis (TB) and Diabetes Mellitus (DM) was widely accepted, today the potential public health and clinical importance of this relationship seems to be largely ignored. The national clinical and policy guidance in the UK on the central of TB, for example, does not consider the relationship with DM.Objectives: To determine the risk of association between diabetes mellitus and pulmonary TB.Methods: A retrospective study conducted in Ibn Zuhr hospital for chest diseases from Jan 2008 – sep 2010 , included in the study 402 patients with TB divided into diabetic & non diabetic, 96 (23.8%) were diabetic while other 306 were TB not diabetic.Results: Risk of TB among DM patients were cle
... Show MoreThis study investigates the requirements of total quality management (TQM) and the determinants affecting its application in Al-Zaman newspaper, one of Iraq’s leading private press institutions. The research employed a survey methodology, using a structured questionnaire administered to 30 participants representing journalistic, administrative, and technical staff. Five TQM dimensions, each measured through four indicators, were assessed to capture the perceptions of employees regarding the availability and effectiveness of quality practices. Data were analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). The results revealed that while senior management at Al-Zaman demonstrates formal support for TQM, there is a
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The research tagged with the controversy of aesthetic interpretation between the sculptures and their titles in contemporary Iraqi sculpture, “Exhibition of Experiments in Contemporary Iraqi Sculpture as a Model”, and it is one of the new research that contributes to strengthening the critical path in the Iraqi fine movement, as the first chapter dealt with the research problem stemming from the question: What is the impact of the aesthetic hermeneutic controversy between the title and the title in contemporary Iraqi sculpture?, and do the titles of the sculptural works help to understand or enhance their contents?, The research objective included: To identify the controversy of the aesthetic interpretation of sculptures and their ti
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