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
Semiconductor-based metal oxide gas detector of five mixed from zinc chloride Z and tin chloride S salts Z:S ratio 0, 25, 50, 75 and 100% were fabricated on glass substrate by a spray pyrolysis technique. With thickness were about 0.2 ±0.05 μm using water soluble as precursors at a glass substrate temperature 500 ºC±5, 0.05 M, and their gas sensing properties toward CH4, LPG and H2S gas at different concentration (10, 100, 1000 ppm) in air were investigated at room temperature which related with the petroleum refining industry.
Furthermore structural and morphology properties were scrutinize. Results shows that the mixing ratio affect the composition of formative oxides were (ZnO, Zn2SnO4, Zn2SnO4+ZnSnO3, ZnSnO3, SnO2) ratios ment
THE IMPACT OF BRITISH THEATER UPON IRAQI DRAMA
Allah Almighty has aggrandized the position of orphans and elevated their status in the society and has given the graces for those who sponsor the orphan and care for and protecting them, even those who rub their heads. The divine care is manifested in the verses of the Holy Bible and the Holy Quran. Therefore, the whole world cared for the orphan, and called for the rights of the orphans in the conferences and the channels. But all that was little effort that does not meet what the orphan need and some were only ink on paper that were not applied. All that mentioned above is necessary in dealing with the study (the rights of orphans in the Old Testament and Islam, a Comparative Study). The study was divided into a Preface and four inquirie
... Show MoreThe current study aims to identify the needs in the stories of the Brothers Grimm. The research sample consisted of (3) stories, namely: 1- The story of the Thorn Rose (Sleeping Beauty) 2- The story of Snow White 3- The story of Little Red Riding Hood. The number of pages analyzed reached (15.5) pages, and to achieve the research objectives, Murray's classification of needs was adopted, which contains (36) basic needs that are further divided into (129) sub-needs. The idea was adopted as a unit of analysis and repetition as a unit of enumeration, Reliability was extracted in two ways: 1- Agreement between the researcher and himself over time, where the agreement coefficient reached 97%. The second was agreement between the researcher and tw
... Show MorePraise be to God, Lord of the worlds, and prayers and peace be upon the best of the messengers, Muhammad, and all his family and companions. And after:
For when I had the pleasure of looking at the chapters of the Noble Qur’an, and its evident signs, my view fell on one of its brightest verses, and it is the Almighty saying: ﭽﯜ ﯝ ﯞ ﯟ ﯠ ﯡ ﯢ ﯣ ﯤ ﯥ ﯦ ﯧ ﯨﭼ (). The tag: (God’s Greatness in Creating a Hoopoe). The research methodology required that I divide it into four sections:
The first topic: an overview of birds.
The second topic: the characteristics and characteristics of hoopoe.
The third topic: the logic of the bird.
The fourth topic: Praise the bird.
This has relied in my research on
The paper presents an annotated checklist of the Salticidae of Armenia. This study was carried out in 2019-2020 in order to provide an inventory of the Salticidae fauna. Thirteen species are reported for the Armenian fauna for the first time: Afraflacilla epiblemoides (Chyzer, 1891); Aelurillus v-insignitus (Clerck, 1757); Asianellus festivus (C. L. Koch, 1834); Heliophanus dubius C. L. Koch, 1835; Heliophanus kochii Simon, 1868; Heliophanus tribulosus Simon, 1868; Heliophanus curvidens (O. Pickard-Cambridge, 1872); Macaroeris nidicolens (Walckenaer, 1802); Pellenes diagonalis (Simon, 1868); Pellenes geniculatus (Simon, 1868); Pellenes seriatus (Thorell, 1875); Pellenes tripunctatus (Walckenaer, 1802) and Phlegra fasciata (Hahn, 1826).
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Infographics have the capability to organize and display information in a way that is easy for viewers to retrieve and make observations. While infographics have been successful in various fields, their potential benefits in composition writing have not been explored. The primary objective of this study is to investigate the perspectives of Iraqi EFL students who used infographics as an educational technology tool in composition writing, and to identify how gender influences students’ performance when using infographics in EFL writing classes. The significance of this study lies in its integration of infographics as an educational technology tool for teaching writing, aligning with the current trend of technology integration in educati
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In this work, enhancement to the fluorescence characteristics of laser dye solutions hosting highly-pure titanium dioxide nanoparticles as random gain media. This was achieved by coating two opposite sides of the cells containing these media with nanostructured thin films of highly-pure titanium dioxide. Two laser dyes; Rhodamine B and Coumarin 102, were used to prepare solutions in hexanol and methanol, respectively, as hosts for the nanoparticles. The nanoparticles and thin films were prepared by dc reactive magnetron sputtering technique. The enhancement was observed by the narrowing of fluorescence linewidth as well as by increasing the fluorescence intensity. These parameters were compared to those of the dye only and the dye solution
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