Cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) is an endemic parasitic disease found in many provinces of Iraq. The immune system plays a crucial role in the development or healing of lesions through chemotactic cytokine activity. This study was aimed to detect the levels of two chemokine ligands (CCL2 and CCL5) in Iraqi patients suffering from dermal ulcers, caused by cutaneous leishmaniasis. It was measured in pre and post-treatment state of Pentostam (Pentavalent Antimony 100 mg). Blood serum concentrations of CCL2, CCL5 were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay among newly infected patients, two-trial treatment patients and three-trial treatment patients, in comparison with the control group. The result indicated a significant difference in CCL5 level for the three groups of CL patients. Whereas the control (p˂0.5), CCL2 level counterparts showed a significant difference only in newly infected and the thee-trial treatment groups. Moreover, there was a significant difference between all CCL5 patient groups, while no observed difference was detected within patient groups of CCL2.Thus altering the chemokine levels before and after treatment gives insights for parasite role in chemokine expression which may help in new therapeutic approaches for dry or wet CL.
Background: Sialosis described as a specific consequence of diabetes. In diabetic sialosis, the increased volume of the glands is due to the infiltration of adipose in the parenchyma. The B-scan ultrasonography is a generally accepted tool for determining parotid gland enlargement. Oral health is, to a greater extent, dependent on quality and quantity of saliva, both of which may be altered in diabetics. This study was established to detect the enlargement of parotid gland in diabetic patient and study the changes in physical properties of saliva and its relation with the salivary gland enlargement. Subjects, Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study with highly specified criteria with ages ranged (20-65) years, male and female subject
... Show MoreOne of the most interested problems that recently attracts many research investigations in Protein-protein interactions (PPI) networks is complex detection problem. Detecting natural divisions in such complex networks is proved to be extremely NP-hard problem wherein, recently, the field of Evolutionary Algorithms (EAs) reveals positive results. The contribution of this work is to introduce a heuristic operator, called protein-complex attraction and repulsion, which is especially tailored for the complex detection problem and to enable the EA to improve its detection ability. The proposed heuristic operator is designed to fine-grain the structure of a complex by dividing it into two more complexes, each being distinguished with a core pr
... Show MoreTriticale is a hybrid of wheat and rye grown for use as animal feed. In Florida, due to its soft coat, triticale is highly vulnerable to Sitophilus oryzae L. (rice weevil) and there is interest in development of methods to detect early-instar larvae so that infestations can be targeted before they become economically damaging. The objective of this study was to develop prediction models of the infestation degree for triticale seed infested with rice weevils of different growth stages. Spectral signatures were tested as a method to detect rice weevils in triticale seed. Groups of seeds at 11 different levels (degrees) of infestation, 0–62%, were obtained by combining different ratios of infested and uninfested seeds. A spectrophotometer wa
... Show MoreThe association of phytoplasma was investigated in symptomatic tomato (
The target of this study was to study the natural phytochemical components of the head (capsule) of Cynara scolymus cultivated in Iraq. The head (capsule) of plant was extracted by maceration in70% ethanol for 72 hours, and fractioned by hexane, chloroform and ethyl acetate. Preliminary qualitative phytochemical screening was performed on the ethyl acetate fraction for capsule was revealed the presence of flavonoid and aromatic acids. These were examined by (high -performance liquid chromatography) (HPLC diodarray), (high- performance thin-layer chromatography)(HPTLC).
Flavonoids were isolated by preparative layer chromatography and aromatic acid was isolated by preparative high-
... Show MoreIn today's world, the science of bioinformatics is developing rapidly, especially with regard to the analysis and study of biological networks. Scientists have used various nature-inspired algorithms to find protein complexes in protein-protein interaction (PPI) networks. These networks help scientists guess the molecular function of unknown proteins and show how cells work regularly. It is very common in PPI networks for a protein to participate in multiple functions and belong to many complexes, and as a result, complexes may overlap in the PPI networks. However, developing an efficient and reliable method to address the problem of detecting overlapping protein complexes remains a challenge since it is considered a complex and har
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