Background: Dyslipidemia is defined as an abnormally high level of various lipids in the blood. It is considered a major risk for atherosclerosis and coronary artery disease. Genetic susceptibility can have a significant influence on the development and progression of dyslipidemia. ApoB-100 R3500Q mutation and ApoE variants are among those genetic risks for dyslipidemia. This study aims to assess the possible contribution of ApoB and ApoE variants on lipid profile among a group of early-onset ischemic heart disease (IHD) patients in comparison to a group of controls. Methods: Forty patients with dyslipidemia and early-onset IHD without chronic conditions likely to cause derangement of lipid levels were recruited to this case-control study along with 20 disease-free controls. Basic demographic and clinical features along with lipid profile changes of the recruited individuals were analyzed and correlated with ApoB R3500Q mutation and ApoE variants in both groups. Results: The majority (80%) of participants were males. Hypertension showed a significant association with abnormal lipid profile among the patients, unlike family history of dyslipidemia, IHD or stroke, smoking status, and parental consanguinity, where no significant association was observed. ApoB R3500Q mutation was detected in a heterozygous state in one IHD patient only. ApoE variants were reported as follows: e3/e3 in 81.7% of recruited individuals while 10% have e3/e4 variant and 8.3% have e2/e3 variant. None of these variants showed a significant correlation with most clinical and lipid profile abnormalities. A noticeable proportion (25-30%) of the controls had marginally increased TC and TG levels respectively, while 60% of the controls had borderline high VLDL levels, which warrants further evaluation. Conclusions: The studied ApoB and ApoE variations do not seem to be the major contributing factors for dyslipidemia and IHD among the recruited individuals. The unhealthy lifestyle or other genetic causes are possible culprits in the absence of chronic medical conditions, which requires the application of certain preventive/therapeutic measures for the community.
Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is an autoimmune disease with polymorphic expression. B cells have an essential contribution in immune system activation via the production of different cytokines and functioning as potent antigen-presenting cells. Therefore, a drug that particularly targets B cells may represent an ideal therapeutic approach for SLE. Rituximab (RTX), an anti-CD20 monoclonal antibody causing transient B-cell depletion, has been used to manage SLE. This study aims to assess Rituximab effects on lupus nephritis (LN) patients when added to conventional immunosuppressants. Twenty four patients, 15-32 years old, with class III/IV/V LN were involved in this study. All were on steroids before lupus nephritis occurrence. They were
... Show MoreObjective: To assess the role of tumour necrosis factor alpha level and genotyping in susceptibility to leishmaniasis.Method: The case-control study was conducted from March to July 2021 at Baqubah Teaching Hospital, Diyala, Iraq,and comprised patients of cutaneous leishmaniasis in group A and healthy controls in group B. The serum level andsingle nucleotide polymorphisms of tumour necrosis factor-alpha rs41297589 and rs1800629 were compared betweenthe groups. Data was analysed using SPSS 28.Results: Of the 150 subjects, there were 75(50%) in group A; 39(52%) males and 36(48%) females with mean age23.91±13.14 years. The remaining 75(50%) subjects were in group B; 38(50.7%) males and 37(49.3%) females withmean age 22.84±4.35 years.
... Show MoreBackground: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic neurodegenerative autoimmune disease mediated by autoreactive T cells against myelin-basic proteins. Cytokines are suggested to play a role in the etiopathogenesis of the disease. Among these cytokines is interleukin-2 (IL-2). Aim of the study: To investigate the association between IL2+166 G/T single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP: rs2069763) and MS in Iraqi patients. Serum level of IL-2 was also detected. Anti-rubella IgG antibody was further determined in the sera of patients. Patients and methods: Eighty MS patients (28 males and 52 females; age mean ± SD: 39.2 ± 16.1 years) and 80 healthy control matched patients for age (32.15 ± 16.13 years) and gender (28 males and 52 females) were en
... Show MoreArrested precipitation methode used to synthesize CuInSe2 (CIS) nanocrystals were added to a hot solvent with organic capping ligands to control nanocrystal formation and growth. CIS thin films deposited onto Soda-Lima Glass (SLG) substrate by spray-coat, then selenized in Ar-atmosphere to form CIS thin films. PVs were made with power conversion efficiencies of 0.631% as-deposited and 0.846% after selenization, for Mo coated, under AM 1.5 illuminations. (XRD) and (EDX) it is evident that CIS have chalcopyrite structure as the major phase with a preferred orientation along (112) direction and Cu:In:Se nanocrystals is nearly 1:1:2 atomic ratio.
Harold Pinter’s The Caretaker(1959) clearly portrays a lack of communication among the characters of the play which refers to the condition of modern man. This failure of communication led Harold Pinter to use a lot of pauses and silences in all the plays he wrote instead of words. Samuel Beckett preceded Pinter in doing so in his plays and one way to express the bewilderment of modern man during the 20th century is through the use of no language in the dramatic works. Language is no more important to modern man; instead, he uses silence to express his feelings. Silence is more powerful than the words themselves. That’s why long and short pauses can be seen throughout all Pinter’s plays.
In this play, th
... Show MorePresentation of urinary calculus ranges from painful urination to acute retention. Diagnosed by x-ray pelvis and non-contrast CT and removal of stone by various methods is the management. Variety in symptoms, sometimes make clinical diagnosis difficult until radiological investigations confirm it. In this case presentation, initial diagnosis was made of Urethrocutaneous fistula may be due to distal stricture, but on investigating, he was diagnosed as urethral calculus in urethral diverticulum , as the reason for his symptoms
The paper proposes a methodology for predicting packet flow at the data plane in smart SDN based on the intelligent controller of spike neural networks(SNN). This methodology is applied to predict the subsequent step of the packet flow, consequently reducing the overcrowding that might happen. The centralized controller acts as a reactive controller for managing the clustering head process in the Software Defined Network data layer in the proposed model. The simulation results show the capability of Spike Neural Network controller in SDN control layer to improve the (QoS) in the whole network in terms of minimizing the packet loss ratio and increased the buffer utilization ratio.