In fish, a complex set of mechanisms deal with environmental stresses including hypoxia. In order to probe the hypothesis that hypoxia-induced stress could be manifested in varieties of pathways, a model species, mirror carp (Cyprinus carpio), were chronically exposed to hypoxic condition (dissolved oxygen level: 1.80±0.6mg/l) for 21 days and subsequently allowed to recover under normoxic condition (dissolved oxygen level: 8.2±0.5mg/l) for 7 days. At the end of these exposure periods, an integrated approach was applied to evaluate several endpoints at different levels of biological organisation. These included determination of (i) oxidative damage to DNA in erythrocytes (using modified comet assay), (ii) lipid peroxidation in liver sample

Three Saccharomyces cerevisiae isolates from different sources (China, Turkey and Egypt) were screened by culturing on solid state fermentation to select the most efficient isolate for invertase production. S. cerevisiae from China was high specific activity 34.7 U/mg. The optimum conditions for enzyme production from this isolate were determined by using a medium composed of wheat bran moisten with 1:0.5 (v:w) corn steep liquor as nitrogen source at initial pH 5.0 for 5 days at 30OC.

The effects of nutrients and physical conditions on phytase production were investigated with a recently isolated strain of Aspergillus tubingensis SKA under solid state fermentation on wheat bran. The nutrient factors investigated included carbon source, nitrogen source, phosphate source and concentration, metal ions (salts) and the physical parameters investigated included inoculum size, pH, temperature and fermentation duration. Our investigations revealed that optimal productivity of phytase was achieved using wheat bran supplemented with: 1.5% glucose. 0.5% (NH4)2SO4, 0.1% sodium phytate. Additionally, optimal physical conditions were 1 × 105 spore/g substrate, initial pH of 5.0, temperature of fermentation 30˚C and fermentation dura

      Ovarian cystic lesions are one of the most common pathologic disorders in gynecology and a common reason for surgery. The purpose of the study was to determine the histopathologic characteristics of benign cystic ovarian lesions and their correlation to age, type, laterality, locularity, and size of ovarian cystic lesions. This is a retrospective study carried out on 100 cases from the archive in the Imam Kadhimian medical city and the educational laboratories of Baghdad medical city, out of 100 patients, the most common age group that underwent cystectomy was 20-40 years old. The vast majority of the cysts were non-neoplastic (67%) while the neoplastic cysts occupy 33% of all cysts. The most common non-neoplastic cyst was cor

Background: Endometrial Cancer (EC) is the malignant tumor originating from endometrium cell (lining of the uterus). EC incidence and mortality have increased in recent years. Routinely used methods for EC diagnosis and treatment are histopathological tissue culture after surgery and postoperative radiotherapy, however there is still not enough efficient treatment for recurrence or progression of this disease. So, there is a critical need for further EC identification by new biological ways for the prognostic diagnosis of it. Objective: This study aimed to look for ways by which could help in diagnosis of EC before the hysterectomy. Materials and Methods: 55 patients with EC and 57 healthy women were involved in this study (up to 45 years)

This study was designed to determine the correlation between Y chromosome azoospermia factor (AZF) subregions microdeletions and oligozoospermia in infertile men. Subjects included 50 infertile men with oligozoospermia who had been referred to the Fertility Center and infertility treatment in Kamal Al-Samarrai Hospital\Baghdad health office-Iraq. DNA was extracted from blood samples. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification of 3 loci spanning the AZFa, AZFb and AZFc subregions of the Y chromosome using sY84, sY127 and sY254 and were performed. The frequency of deletions involving AZFa subregion of the Y-chromosome was found in twelve of the patients (24%) in oligozoospermic infertile Iraqi men. While the other subregion (AZFb and AZ

Infection of the gastric mucosa with Helicobacter pylori is strongly associated with chronic gastritis, peptic ulcer and gastric cancer. Helicobacter pylori virulence factors include a variety of proteins that are involved in its pathogenesis, such as VacA and CagA. Another group of virulence factors is clearly important for colonization of H.pylori in the gastric mucosa. These include urease, motility factors (flagellin), and Superoxide dismutase (SOD). Because of this organism's microaerophilic nature and the increased levels of reactive oxygen in the infected host, we expect that other factors involved in the response to oxidative stress are likely to be required for virulence. Superoxide dismutase is a near