The present study was set to demonstrate the prevalence of toxoplasmosis infection and its effects on patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) through determining their serum levels of anti-dsDNA and IL-18 antibodies. For this purpose, the sera from 132 SLE and/or toxoplasmosis patients and 30 healthy women, were collected. The study sample was divided into four groups of SLE, toxoplasmosis, SLE coinfected with toxoplasmosis, and healthy control. Anti-Toxoplasma IgG antibodies were examined for all the samples using ELISA kit. The results showed a high mean level of anti-Toxoplasma IgG among SLE patients coinfected with toxoplasmosis (104.8792±12.31585pg/ml) in comparison to that in toxoplasmosis patients (91.1705±12.57746pg/ml). However, the mean value of anti-dsDNA antibodies showed significant (P≤0.01) elevation in SLE patients and SLE patients coinfected with toxoplasmosis (71.2134±9.22131pg/ml and 72.3699±9.67917 pg/ml, respectively), compared to those infected with toxoplasmosis only and healthy control. Furthermore, the IL-18 mean value in the sera of the studied patients showed significant (P≤0.01) elevation (418.4000±43.18072pg/ml) in SLE patients with toxoplasmosis in comparison to SLE patients (354.4400±35.29257pg/ml). The present investigation suggests that the levels of anti-Toxoplasma IgG antibodies seem to increase in patients with SLE.
Influence of metal nanoparticles synthesized by microorganisms upon soil-borne microscopic fungus Aspergillus terreus K-8 was studied. It was established that the metal nanoparticles synthesized by microorganisms affect the enzymatic activity of the studied culture. Silver nanoparticles lead to a decrease in cellulase activity and completely suppress the amylase activity of the fungus, while copper nanoparticles completely inhibit the activity of both the cellulase complex and amylase. The obtained results imply that the large-scale use of silver and copper nanoparticles may disrupt biological processes in the soil and cause change in the physiological and biochemical state of soil-borne microorganisms as well.
The food web is a crucial conceptual tool for understanding the dynamics of energy transfer in an ecosystem, as well as the feeding relationships among species within a community. It also reveals species interactions and community structure. As a result, an ecological food web system with two predators competing for prey while experiencing fear was developed and studied. The properties of the solution of the system were determined, and all potential equilibrium points were identified. The dynamic behavior in their immediate surroundings was examined both locally and globally. The system’s persistence demands were calculated, and all conceivable forms of local bifurcations were investigated. With the aid of MATLAB, a numerical simu
... Show MoreThe ABO blood group system is highly polymorphic, with more than 20 distinct sub-groups; study findings are usually related to ABO phenotype, but rarely to the ABO genotype and animal models are unsatisfactory because their antigen glycosylation structure is different from humans. Both the ABO and Rh blood group systems have been associated with a number of diseases, but this is more likely related to the presence or absence of these tissue antigens throughout the body and not directly or primarily related to their presence on RBCs. A total of fifty-two 52 patients without complication of DMII, two hundred sixteen 216 patients with complication of DMII and seventy-one 71 person as healthy control were included in the study. The resu
... Show MoreIFRS 17 aims to provide a unified basis for accounting for all types of insurance contracts, including reinsurance contracts, in a manner that benefits both investors and insurance companies and enhances the ability of the financial statements of insurance companies for comparison between companies listed in financial markets around the world. According to this standard, insurance contracts are accounted for on the basis of the Asset-Liability Approach and the use of fair values that the standard requires updating regularly in order to provide more useful information to the users of financial statements, as a result of the failure of reporting requirements for insurance contr
... Show MoreAll businesses seek to improve their levels of profits through various means, most notably their marketing channels, which ensure the delivery of their products to their customers in a safe manner in a timely manner. It considers losses to a minimum and that insurance companies place great interest in marine insurance losses because they often constitute huge amounts compared to other losses, hence the problem of research, which is centred on the type and size of the impact owned by the channel The Iraqi insurance company was chosen to be applied according to the intentional sample method because this company is closely related to the subject matter. The research has reached a set of conclusions, most notably that the choice of i
... Show More4 Blood Res 2018;53:314-319. Received on August 11, 2018 Revised on August 30, 2018 Accepted on August 30, 2018 Background Iron overload is a risk factor affecting all patients with thalassemia intermedia (TI). We aimed to determine whether there is a relationship of serum ferritin (SF) and alanine ami- notransferase (ALT) with liver iron concentration (LIC) determined by R2 magnetic reso- nance imaging (R2-MRI), to estimate the most relevant degree of iron overload and best time to chelate in patients with TI. Methods In this cross-sectional study, 119 patients with TI (mean age years) were randomly se- lected and compared with 120 patients who had a diagnosis of thalassemia major (TM). Correlations of LIC, as determined by R2-MRI, with SF
... Show MoreBackground: Ankylosing spondylitis is a chronic inflammatory disease that mostly involves the spine and sacroiliac joints. It is associated with a decreased quality of life. Biological medicines such as infliximab and its biosimilar are the mainstay treatments for active ankylosing spondylitis.
Objective: The study objective was to conduct a pharmacoeconomic study comparing the cost-effectiveness of the reference infliximab with its biosimilar in ankylosing spondylitis patients visiting public hospitals.
Subjects and Method: This is a two-center pharmacoeconomic study performed at two large teaching governmental hospitals in Baghdad, Iraq, which s
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