javad gharechahi

Numerous experiments have been performed to determine the relationship between the Matrix metalloproteinase-2 (MMP-2) -1306C/T and -735C/T polymorphisms and the prevalence and progression of lung cancer in diverse populations. However, due to the small sample size and the different results of previous studies, we decided to perform a general meta-analysis on all previous studies about mmp-2 polymorphism and lung cancer in Asian population.

A complete literature review was conducted within the ISI Web of Knowledge, google scholar, and PubMed databases for studies about MMP-2 polymorphism and lung cancer published from 2002 to 2020. A meta-analysis was conducted, which included more than 2884 cases and 2768 controls. The pooled odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were used for dominant, recessive, and co-dominant MMP-9 genotypes to assess the strength of the association.

A significant correlation was found between the MMP2 C 1306T polymorphism and lung cancer risk (C vs T: OR=1.705, P=0.029; CC vs CT+ TT: OR=1.16, 95% P=0.000) and for MMP2 C 735T polymorphism (C vs T: OR=1.433, P=0.151; CC vs CT+TT: OR=1.698, P=0.000).

The present meta-analysis revealed a significant association between the MMP-2-735C/T and MMP-9-1562 C/T polymorphisms and the risk of lung cancer in Asian population.

The humus index is a numerical score based on the visual assessment of organic horizons and humus forms identification. This index reflects different characteristics of forests stand and soil. Forest humus is an intermediate between plants and soil, which is affected by various factors, such as topography, climate, vegetation and soil. Nevertheless, by digging the humus profile and determining its index, it is also possible to determine many ecological factors. The aim of this study was to investigate the humus index and its relationship with topographic, soil and forest cover characteristics along an altitudinal gradient in the four-altitude class, including 0, 500, 1000 and 1500 meters above sea level (m a.s.l.), in Vaz forests located in Mazandaran province.

In each altitude class, the characteristics of the trees such as crown canopy, density, diameter and height, as well as topography and soil characteristics such as altitude, slope percentage, soil moisture and temperature were taken in 400 m2 plots, and in each plot, five 30 × 30 cm profiles for identification of humus forms were drilled and then identified and classified based on Humusica classification. In order to evaluate the humus index between different altitude classes was used one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), as well as to analyze its relationship with the mentioned characteristics, multiple linear regression analysis (MLR) was used.

The results showed that the highest amount of humus index and litter thickness belonged to the altitude class 1500 m a.s.l. and their trend is increasing along the altitudinal gradient. Also, the results of MLR indicate the existence of a linear and significant relationship is between humus index and topographic and soil characteristics with high determination coefficient (R2 = 0.76), especially soil temperature with (P-value = 0.000), while the tree cover characteristics with a low determination coefficient (R2 = 0.31), cannot well be a good predictor for evaluating the humus index. Meanwhile, soil temperature and trees crown canopy are two factors that have shown the highest t-statistics in relation to the humus index, so that the decrease in soil temperature and trees crown canopy has increased the humus index.

In general, it can be concluded that with increasing altitude, the organic part of the forest floor and Humus index increase, and their variability is mostly due to changes in topographic and soil temperature characteristics.

In order to investigate the effect of salinity stress on the amount of two important metabolites of saffron (Crocin) and Picrocrocin (Flavor Factor), saffron corms were planted in hydroponic conditions in pots containing perlite and in controlled laboratory conditions with 100 ml of ½ Hoagland nutrient solution containing 0, 30, 60, 90, 120 and 150 mM Sodium chloride (NaCl) were irrigated for four weeks. After flowering, stigmas were harvested and crocin and picrocrocin were separated and purified by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) equipped with detector spectrophotometer (HPLC-DAD). The results showed a significant difference in the amount of crocin between different salinity treatments at 5% level, the highest decrease in crocin content was observed at 120 mM NaCl, which was 98% lower than the control treatment. There was no significant difference in picrocrocin in different treatments, but in the 90 and 120 treatments, there was a significant decrease of 45% and 41%, respectively. According to the results of the present study, salinity decreased the secondary metabolites of saffron.

The activity of fungal and enzymes are important for soil quality in forest ecosystems. Altitudes above sea level (a.s.l.) are important for their impacts on biological and non-biological characteristics of soil by effecting distribution of fungal communities and their enzymatic activities. The aim of this study was to investigate fungi diversity and soil enzyme activities in relation to soil quality index (SQI) along an altitudinal gradient (0, 500, 1000, 1500, 2000 and 2500 m a.s.l.) in Vaz watershed- Mazandaran province. In each elevation level, nine 400 m2 plots were investigated for tree cover and soil characteristics. The soil physical, chemical, and enzymatic properties were measured by conventional laboratory technique. To profile fungal community, ITS region was PCR amplified using barcoded primers and sequenced using next-generation sequencing technologies. Our results showed that the highest SQI and leucine aminopeptidase activities were observed at the lowest elevation level with the highest soil microbial respiration, nitrogen and temperature. The highest percentage of ectomycorrhizal and yeasts fungi, as well as the highest activates of arylsulfatase and acid phosphatase enzymes were associated with middle SQI in 1500 m altitude level with a high correlation with soil carbon concentration. The lowest SQI, along with the activity of saprotrophic fungus and β-glucosidase and cellobiohydrolase enzymes was noted in higher elevations. It can be concluded that with increasing elevation, SQI is decreased due to a reduced ectomycorrhizal fungi population and decreased activities of carbon/nitrogen-dependent enzymes in the absence of coexisting tree species.

The role of the lung microbiome in respiratory complications associated with chemicals such as sulfur mustard or chlorine gas has yet to be determined. The aim of this study was to compare the structure and composition of the lung microbiome in chemically injured and healthy individuals in order to understand the relation between the population of the lung microbiota and respiratory complications caused by exposure to these chemicals.

To study lung microbiota, the bronchial alveolar lavage (BAL) fluids were collected from 17 chemically injured and 15 healthy cases during the bronchoscopy procedure. The diversity of lung bacteria present in BAL samples was explored using 16S rRNA gene sequencing.

The lung microbiome dominated by members of phyla Firmicutes, Bacteroidetes, Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, Fusobacteria and Synergistetes which collectively accounted for > 95% of sequences. At the genus level, members of the genera Prevotella, Leptotrichia, Atopobium, Aggregatibacter, Catonella, and Oribacterium showed more than 2-fold increase in abundance in the lung microbiome of chemically injured patients. Comparing lung bacterial community at the species level, however, revealed an increased prevalence of members of Rothia mucilaginosa (3-fold), Prevotella melaninogenica (2.7-fold), Prevotella pallens (3.5-fold), Actinobacillus parahaemolyticus (2.5-fold), Veillonella parvula (2.5-fold), and Neisseria subflava (1.5-fold) in these patients.

An increased abundance of bacterial species known to associate with airway inflammation suggested their implications in respiratory failure in chemically injured patients. Monitoring and maintaining the homeostasis of the microbial population colonizing lung of chemically injured patients will pave the way to develop a more targeted treatment for these patients.

Humus systems are the largest part of organic carbon stock and play an important role in forest ecological processes. Elevation by influencing on the biological and non-biological properties of the forest ecosystem is an important factor for assessing the changes in the trees and distribution of humus systems. In this study, the morphological and chemical characteristics of humus forms in three altitudinal levels (500, 1000, and 1500 m.a.s.l.) and three transects which were 1000 meters apart were investigated. In each transect, 3 plots with 400 m2 area were sampled, and in each plot 5 profiles of humus (in total of 135 profiles) were examined in the central Hyrcanian forest. Humus and samples were taken and transferred to the laboratory for chemical analysis. The results showed that the presence of Iron wood (Scientific name??) and ash (Scientific name??) trees mull humus forms and soil nitrogen stock decreased by elevation increasing. Hornbeam (Scientific name??) and maple (Scientific name??) trees, organic layers' nitrogen, mesomull and leptoamphi humus forms demonstrated strong correlation with the 1000 m elevation. The number of beech trees, carbon in soil and organic layers, organic layers' thickness and humus Amphi forms showed a strong relationship with each other as well as with elevation increasing.  The effect of elevation on the composition of the trees coverage is accompanied by the variability in morphology and chemical characteristics of humus forms, so that by identifying tree species in every altitude, we can recognize the quantitative and qualitative properties of humus and soil.

Visceral leishmaniasis (VL) is endemic in the northwest and south of Iran. Untreated cases of VL could cause death. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the diagnostic performance of western blotting to detect a specific immunodominant proteins pattern for Leishmania infantum infection using human sera infected with VL. We studied a panel of 122 cryopreserved human serum samples from the leishmaniasis Research Laboratory, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran from 2010 to 2017.
Serum samples were collected from visceral (Group I, n: 43) and cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) (Group II, n: 8) patients, healthy individuals from endemic (Group III, n: 13) and non-endemic (Group IV, n: 16) areas for VL, and patients with other infectious diseases (Group V, n: 42). Total antigens were prepared from the Iranian strain of L. infantum promastigote form. In western blotting method, 34 protein bands of 14 to 163 kDa were recognized using the sera of VL pa tients. The polypeptide fractions with the highest frequency including 29, 51, and 62 kDa fractions were detected using 81.4%, 79%, and 81.4% of the sera, respectively. These bands were not detected using the sera of the negative control. Moreover, 19-23, 27, 31-35, 143-163, and 109 kDa fractions were detected specifically using the sera of the patients with VL. This technique could be a primary step for further exploration of VL immunodominant antigens for cloning (or any technique) further investigations for future planning.

The proteome is defined as the set of all expressed proteins in a cell, tissue or organism. At present, two techniques are absolutely central for proteomic analyses: (1) two-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (2D-PAGE), which can separate thousands of proteins, and (2) mass spectrometry (MS) for the identification of proteins and their post-translational modifications. Proteomic analysis of protein mixtures can be subdivided into four essential steps involving sample preparation (step 1), protein separation in combination with differential analysis of the resulting protein patterns (step 2), proteolytic digestion of the target proteins (step 3), followed by protein identification via peptide mass fingerprinting (PMF((step 4), followed by database searching of the resulting peptide masses. Since proteins serve as important components of major signaling and biochemical pathways, studies at protein levels are essential to reveal molecular mechanisms underlying plant growth, development, and interactions with the environment. Proteomic analyses of plant organs or tissues were applied to monitor developmental changes or the influence of environmental stimuli on protein patterns. In this review, proteomics technique and its applications on plant researches will be outlined.