Background: Legionella pneumophila (L. pneumophila) is gram-negative bacterium, which causes Legionnaires’ disease as well as Pontiac fever. Objective: To determine the frequency of Legionella pneumophila in pneumonic patients, to determine the clinical utility of diagnosing Legionella pneumonia by urinary antigen testing (LPUAT) in terms of sensitivity and specificity, to compares the results obtained from patients by urinary antigen test with q Real Time PCR (RT PCR) using serum samples and to determine the frequency of serogroup 1 and other serogroups of L. pneumophila. Methods: A total of 100 pneumonic patients (community acquired pneumonia) were enrolled in this study during a period between October 2016 to April 2017; 92 samples were collected from patients attended and admitted to Al-Imamein Al-Kadhimein Medical City and 8 samples from those in the (Center of Kidney Diseases and Transplantation) in the Medical City of Baghdad. All patients were under therapy with antibiotics. Serum and urine specimens were obtained from all patients; urine samples were processed for urinary antigen test (rapid test). Serum samples were collected and submitted to DNA extraction for detection of L. pneumophila mip gene by q RT PCR assay. Results: The percentage of L. pneumophila in two hospitals in Bagdad was 30%. Of these 26% was serogroup 1 detected by urinary antigen testing (UAT). In the other hand, 23% of samples were positive by q RT PCR based mip gene, of these 19 % were serogroup 1 and 4% were another serogroup. The sensitivity of UAT is high (P value < 0.001), which means statistically highly significance than q RT PCR. Conclusion: LPUAT is a rapid tool for early diagnosis of Legionella infection, which highlights the need of using this test in hospitals and health institutions and there is a high prevalence of L. pneumophila in Iraq that refer to the necessity of considering this microorganism point of view in future studies for detection and treatment in pneumonic patients. Keywords: L. pneumophila, mip gene, quantitative real time PCR, urinary antigen. Citation: Gauad SA, Abdulrahman TR, Muhamad AK, Jawad AA, Hassan JS. Clinical utility of urinary antigen test and molecular method for detection of Legionella pneumophila. Iraqi JMS. 2018; 16(2): 207-215. doi: 10.22578/IJMS.16.2.13
In this search, a new pyrophosphate technique was proved. The technique was employed to single- nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), which diagnosis using a one-base extension reaction. Three Mycobacterium tuberculosis genes were chosen (Rpob, InhA, KatG) genes. Fifty-four specimens were used in this study fifty-three proved as drug-resistant specimens by The Iraqi Institute of Chest and Respiratory Diseases in Baghdad.; also one specimen was used as a negative control. The steps of this technique were by used a specific primer within each aliquot that has a short 3-OH end of the base of the target gene that was hybridized to the single-stranded DNA template. Then, the Taq polymerase enzyme and one of either α-thio-dATP, dTTP, dGTP, or dCTP
... Show MoreA total of 96 stool samples were collected from children with bloody diarrhea from two hospitals in Baghdad. All samples were surveyed and examined for the presence of the Escherichia coli O157:H7 and differentiate it from other Non -Sorbitol Fermenting Escherichia coli (NSF E. coli). The Bacterial isolates were identifed by using morphological diagnostic methods, Samples were cultured on liquid enrichment medium, incubated at 37C? for 24 hrs, and then cultured on Cefixime Tellurite -Sorbitol MacConkey Agar (CT- SMAC). 32 non-sorbitol fermenting bacterial isolates were obtained of which 11 were identified as Escherichia coli by using traditional biochemical tests and API20E diagnostic system without differentiation between
... Show MoreMechanical degradation hampers the practical usage of polymers for turbulent drag reduction
application. Mechanical degradation refers to the chemical process in which the activation energy of
polymer chain scission is exceeded by mechanical action on the polymer chain, and bond rupture
occurs. When a water-soluble polymer and surfactant are mixed in water solution, the specific structures
(aggregates) are formed, in which polymer film is formed around micelle. In this work, Xanthan gum (XG) –
Sodium lauryl ether sulfate (SELS) complex formation and its effect on percentage viscosity reduction
(%VR) was studied. It was found that SELS surfactant reduced the mechanical degradation of XG much
more efficiently than th
Crop diseases are usually caused by inoculum of pathogens which might exist on alternate hosts or weeds as endophytes. These endophytes, cum pathogens, usually confer some beneficial attributes to these weeds or alternate hosts from protection against herbivores, disease resistance, stress tolerance to secondary metabolites production. This study was therefore carried out to isolate potential crop pathogens which exist as endophytes on weed species in the University of Ilorin plantations. Green asymptomatic leaves were collected from 10 weed species across the plantations, and processed for their endophytic fungi isolation. Isolates were purified into pure cultures and used for molecular identification using the internal transcribed spac
... Show MoreIA Ali, FK Emran, DF Salloom, Annals of the Romanian Society for Cell Biology, 2021
Carnosol, a phenolic diterpene, is one of the effective anticancer agents naturally occurring in rosemary, sage, parsley, and oregano. The chemoresistance problem increased with the routinely used chemotherapy. Therefore, the efforts to find a substitute with safe and low cost have become crucial worldwide. The current study attempts to inspect the anticancer molecular mechanisms of Carnosol on modulating up- and down- regulation of multiple genetic carcinogenesis pathways. The cytotoxicity of Carnosol on Hela cells was evaluated by MTS assay. Flow cytometry was used to assess apoptosis and cell cycle arrest. The apoptotic morphological changes were obvious by dual apoptosis assay. The differential gene expression after treatment wi
... Show MoreThis article studies a comprehensive methods of edge detection and algorithms in digital images which is reflected a basic process in the field of image processing and analysis. The purpose of edge detection technique is discovering the borders that distinct diverse areas of an image, which donates to refining the understanding of the image contents and extracting structural information. The article starts by clarifying the idea of an edge and its importance in image analysis and studying the most noticeable edge detection methods utilized in this field, (e.g. Sobel, Prewitt, and Canny filters), besides other schemes based on distinguishing unexpected modifications in light intensity and color gradation. The research as well discuss
... Show MoreIn this work a fragile watermarking scheme is presented. This scheme is applied to digital color images in spatial domain. The image is divided into blocks, and each block has its authentication mark embedded in it, we would be able to insure which parts of the image are authentic and which parts have been modified. This authentication carries out without need to exist the original image. The results show the quality of the watermarked image is remaining very good and the watermark survived some type of unintended modification such as familiar compression software like WINRAR and ZIP
Although text document images authentication is difficult due to the binary nature and clear separation between the background and foreground but it is getting higher demand for many applications. Most previous researches in this field depend on insertion watermark in the document, the drawback in these techniques lie in the fact that changing pixel values in a binary document could introduce irregularities that are very visually noticeable. In this paper, a new method is proposed for object-based text document authentication, in which I propose a different approach where a text document is signed by shifting individual words slightly left or right from their original positions to make the center of gravity for each line fall in with the m
... Show MoreEye Detection is used in many applications like pattern recognition, biometric, surveillance system and many other systems. In this paper, a new method is presented to detect and extract the overall shape of one eye from image depending on two principles Helmholtz & Gestalt. According to the principle of perception by Helmholz, any observed geometric shape is perceptually "meaningful" if its repetition number is very small in image with random distribution. To achieve this goal, Gestalt Principle states that humans see things either through grouping its similar elements or recognize patterns. In general, according to Gestalt Principle, humans see things through genera
... Show More