Background: Prolactin is a hormone, as well as a cytokine which is synthesized and secreted from the anterior pituitary gland and various extra pituitary sites including immune cells under control of a superdistal promoter that contains a single nucleotide polymorphism -1149 G/T. Rheumatoid Arthritis has been associated with increased serum prolactin levels.Objectives: To investigate the association of the extra pituitary -1149 G/T promoter polymorphism among Iraqi rheumatoid arthritis patients and prolactin levels.Methods: We tested 73 patients with rheumatoid arthritis and 40 healthy individuals. The DNA samples were genotyped using the Polymerase Chain Reaction-Restriction fragment Length Polymorphism method and the levels of prolactin serum were measured using Enzyme linked immunosorbent assay.Results: The parameters rheumatoid factor, C-reactive protein, erythrocyte sedimentation rate and serum prolactin concentrations of rheumatoid arthritis patients were significantly increased compared with healthy controls. The frequency of T allele and TT genotype was highest in control group compared with their frequency in rheumatoid arthritispatients, vice versa the G allele and GG genotype. There issignificant differences in prolactin levels in rheumatoid arthritis patients compared with healthy controls according to PRL-1149 G/T polymorphism. In rheumatoid arthritis patients, carriers of the GG, GT genotypes had higher prolactin levels in comparison to TT genotype but did not show any significant difference.Conclusions: There is a possible association between prolactin levels and rheumatoid arthritis. We found correlation between rheumatoid arthritis and prolactin -1149 G/T polymorphism. The prolactin -1149 G allele is a genetic marker for increased rheumatoid arthritis susceptibility in Iraqi population. In addition, influence of prolactin -1149 G/T polymorphism on prolactin levels
Asphaltene is one of the fractions of the crude oil which is soluble in aromatics such as benzene or toluene and insoluble in alkane such as n-heptane, n-pentane or petroleum ether (mixture of alkane compounds). Asphaltene precipitation is one of the most common problems that sometimes occurs in both oil recovery and refinery processes as a result of changing in pressure, oil composition, or temperature. Therefore the stability of asphaltene in the crude oil must be studied to show the tendency of it for precipitating asphaltene to prevent it (Asphaltene precipitation and deposition problem) and eliminate the burden of high treatment costs.
In the present study, saturate, aromatic, resin and asphaltene (SAR
... Show MoreIn our work present, the application of strong-Lensing observations for some gravitational lenses have been adopted to study the geometry of the universe and to explain the physics and the size of the quasars. The first procedure was to study the geometrical of the Lensing system to determine the relation between the redshift of the gravitational observations with its distances. The second procedure was to compare between the angular diameter distances "DA" calculated from the Euclidean case with that from the Freedman models, then evaluating the diameter of the system lens. The results concluded that the phenomena are restricted to the ratio of distance between lens and source with the diameter of the lens noticing.
Recently, young people have shown a desire to keep cats as pets, despite being threatened with health problems including toxoplasmosis. Therefore, the current study was aimed to detect toxoplasmosis infections among of volunteers students as well as spreading health awareness among students and knowledge about the importance of this disease. Prevalence rate and effects of liver functions were tested by measured levels of Aspartate aminotransferase (AST) and Alanine aminotransferase (ALT) enzymes while the OnSiteToxo IgG/IgM combo rapid test was used in the diagnosis of the disease. The blood samples were collected from 76 volunteers (35 male and 41 female). The results showed that, the total percentage of infections was 27.6% and all infect
... Show MoreDiverse organismsuch as mammals and fishes exposure to noxious waste in the surroundings is a continuous routine and the active absorption and propagation of contaminants in humans is through the food chain. In order to determine the level of toxicity across the food chain,this research was structured to identify some biochemical alterations in the hepatic tissue of rats fed cadmium, cyanide and a mixture of cyanide and cadmium contaminated catfish diet. Fish were assigned into four groups and were exposed to both toxicants (cadmium and cyanide) in the single and combined states. Each toxicant was administered as cadmium chloride (CdCl2) and potassium cyanide (KCN) on a dose of 0.4 mg of the toxicant/100 ml water
... Show MoreThe composition of the clay taken from the lake of Hamrin, Iraq was studied with the determination of the concentrations of the major oxides and the minor oxides in it. Kaolinite was the most dominant clay in the samples, while quartz was the most abundant non-clay mineral.
Some physico-chemical parameters in lake's water were determined such as oxygen, a chlorosity, nutrient salts, pH, total alkalinity, total nitrogen, total phosphorous and silicate.
The effect of increased wastewater and human activities affected the composition of water and lead to a decrease in the productivity of the lake which was reflected by the relatively low pH values (average 8.0) and alkalinity in water as a result of t
... Show MorePhytophagous stink bugs (Hemiptera, Pentatomidae) are economically important insect pests of fruit, vegetable, nut and field crops. This study was carried out during the season of 2013 in orchards within Erbil city, to follow the stink bug Mustha spinulosa (Lefebvre, 1831) seasonal fluctuation on some fruit trees: olive, plum, apricot, pear, apple and almond.
The stink bug reaches its maximum abundance throughout the second week of August (38.2/tree) coinciding with mean temperature and relative humidity of 33.40C and 28.14% respectively, and the highest total mean of the number of the insect was recorded on the olive trees (181.8/tree). The study reveals that the stink bug attacked 22 trees (fruit and forest) while it has not atta
Seeds of barley ( Hordeum vulgare L.) plant var. California Marriout were soaked in solutions of calcium sulphate and calcium chloride at different concentrations (0.5%,1.0%,5.0%) for different periods of time(3,6,12) h with continuous aeration . Seeds were planted in petridishs. Seedling of some treatment were transferred to the solution culture. The nutrient solution used was that of Arnon and Hoagland but at 1:10 strength. Different concentrations of NaCl were used in the nutrient solution (100,150, 200) m M . Unsoaked seeds and soaked in distilled water were used for comparison . Salt stress tolerance was evaluated by different morphological parameters. Results showed that the adverse effect of saline stress were reduced by so
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