Leishmania species are the causative agent of a tropical disease known as leishmaniasis. Previous studies on the old world species Leishmania major, showed that the amastigotes form which resides inside the macrophage of the vertebrate host, utilize host’s sphingolipids for survival and proliferation. In this study, gene expression of serine palmitoyltransferase (SPT) subunit two (MmLCB2) of the mouse macrophage cell line (RAW264.7), which is the first enzyme in the de novo sphingolipid biosynthesis, was detected in both infected and non-infected macrophages. This was detected under condition where available sphingolipid was reduced, with the new world species Leishmania mexicana. Results of qPCR analysis showed that there was no difference in the expression of MmLCB2 in infected and non-infected macrophages, under normal and serum-reduced media, suggesting that host sphingolipid did not up-regulated during infection. This can be concluded as a difference between the Old and New world Leishmania on the level of host-parasite interaction.
Photodynamic Action (PDA) by using appropriate wavelength of irradiation conjugated with porphyrin derivatives is a powerful mechanism of tumor destruction. Hematoporphyrin derivative has been shown to selectively localize in neoplastic cells and then cause destruction of them by generation of singlet oxygen when activated by low power He-Ne laser. Light which used in this study has been emitting from this laser has a wavelength equal to 632.8 nm (red light). Doses of laser had been varied from 3.6 J/cm2 to 14.4 J/cm2 . The beam of laser adjusted with a modified tissue culture plate. Cell lines had exposed to Hematoporphyrin D (HpD) for 24 hours before Laser exposure, their concentrations were varied from 5 µg/ml to 80 µg/ml. Resu
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The environmental conditions are important factors, because they affect both the efficiency of a photovoltaic module and the energy load. This research was carried out experimentally and modeling was done in MATLAB –Simulink by monitoring the variation in power output of the system with environmental conditions such as solar radiation, ambient temperature, wind speed, and humidity of Baghdad city. From the results, the ambient temperatures are inversely proportional to humidity and the output power performance of the system, while the wind speed is directly proportional with the output power performance of the system.
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... Show MoreIn the present study, a total of 245 flour samples were collected from 49 mills on both sides of Baghdad city (Al- Karkh and Al- Resafa), during the period from 1/6 - 1/12/ 2015 to detect the prolportion of iron added to the flour samples. It is found that only 45% of mills produced flour contain the prescribed percentage of iron (30-60 ppm) while 51.9% of the mills produced flour at rate is less or much more than the prescribed percentage, while only 4.1% of the mills were not added iron to the flour.
The levels of lead (pb), copper (cu), cobalt (co) and cadmium (cd) were determined in different kinds of milk and the health risks were evaluated. The mean levels were 0.73±0.21, 0.06±0.01, 0.12±0.01 and 0.14±0.01 ppm for these metals respectively. The levels of pb and cu were found to be insignificant differences (p<0.05), whereas the levels of co and cd, were no significant differences (p>0.05). The dry and liquid kinds of milk were different significantly (p<0.05), whereas the original, was no significant differences (p>0.05). The values for all metals were more than one. The metals pb and cd were detected at highest concentrations in most dry and liquid milk samples.
BACKGROUND: HLA-B27 can effect clinical presentation and course of ankylosing spondylitis. Different detection techniques of HLA-B27 are available with variable sensitivities and specificities. OBJECTIVE: To compare serologic and molecular diagnostic techniques of detecting HLA-B27 status and to correlate it with some clinical variables among ankylosing spondylitis patients. PATIENTS AND METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted on 83 Iraqi patients with ankylosing spondylitis. Clinical and laboratory evaluations were reported. HLA-B27 status was determined in all patients by real-time PCR using HLA-B27 RealFast™ kit; ELISA method was used as well to detect soluble serum HLA-B27 antigens using Human Leukocyte Antigen® kit. RESULTS:
... Show MoreCD40 is a type 1 transmembrane protein composed of 277 amino acids, and it belongs to the tumor necrosis factor receptor (TNFR) superfamily. It is expressed in a variety of cell types, including normal B cells, macrophages, dendritic cells, and endothelial cells, as a costimulatory molecule. This study aims to summarize the CD40 polymorphism effect and its susceptibility to immune-related disorders. The CD40 gene polymorphisms showed a significant association with different immune-related disorders and act as a risk factor for increased susceptibility to these diseases.
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 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