نشریه دانش زیستی ایران
سال دوازدهم شماره 4 (زمستان 1396)

Recurrent pregnancy loss (RPL) is defined as the occurrence of two or more consecutive pregnancy loss prior to 20th week of gestation. There are several leading causes of RPL including uterine anatomical defects, genetic factors, infectious, immunological, environmental and blood dyscariasis. However, despite in a large number of cases no causes have been identified, therefore are introduced as idiopathic. Gene polymorphisms may effect on the incidence of abortion. One of these genes is the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). Present study was aimed to investigate the association of VEGF gene polymorphisms with recurrent spontaneous abortion of the fetus. We conducted a case–control study of 200 women: 100 patients with at least two unexplained consecutive pregnancy losses and 100 healthy controls with at least one live birth and no history of pregnancy loss. Patients with recurrent pregnancy losses due to anatomic, hormonal, chromosomal, infectious, autoimmune, or thrombotic causes were excluded from the study group. Genomic DNA was extracted from peripheral blood lymphocytes. Rs3024998 and rs699947 polymorphisms of VEGF gene were studied using PCR-RFLP technique. Respectively, MaeI and BglII restriction enzymes were used for digestion. Digestion products were visualized by polyacrylamide gel (12%PAGE) electrophoresis. Distribution analysis for homozygous and heterozygous genotypes in the two studied groups was performed by using SPSS ver.18.Genetic differences between case and control groups were calculated by using the chi-square test. Significant difference (P<0.05) was identified between the frequency of allelic status of rs3024998 and rs3025000in two studied groups.

It seems that the success of vaccination in order to cancer immunotherapy is abrogating through a powerful network of immune system suppressive elements which one of them is regulatory T cell. In different studies inducing an immune response against regulatory cells expressing foxp3 and their removal have been assessed. As these previous studies could not efficiently conquer the suppressive effect of regulatory cells by their partial elimination, we were searching for constructing more effective vaccines against regulatory T cells by which we hope to improve the effect of combined means of immunotherapy in cancer. DNA construct containing fragment C (Fc) portion of IgG fused to Foxp3 was designed. Expression of DNA construct was investigated following its transfection into HEK cells through fluorescent microscopy, flow cytometry and western blot. FOXP3-Fc fusion protein was expressed in E. coli strain BL21 as host cells. DNA construct and respective protein were injected into C57BL/6 mice. After 2 weeks, serum level of IgG antibody and its sub classes was investigated by ELISA test. The expression analysis of DNA construct showed that this construct successfully expressed in eukaryotic cells. Moreover, the Foxp3-Fc expression was confirmed by SDS-PAGE followed by western blot analysis.

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is one of the most important pathogens in hospitals. One of the therapeutic problems of this bacterium is antibiotic resistance to common antibiotic treatments associated with biofilm production. This study was conducted to find out the relationship between antibiotic resistance and biofilm formation on P. aeruginosa isolated from 50 clinical specimens of patients referring to Milad Hospital in Tehran. Biochemical and differential tests were carried out to identify and isolate P. aeruginosa. The resistance of the strains was determined by antibiogram test and the ability of biofilm strain formation was investigated by microtiterplate method. The results showed that the highest resistance to antibiotics was ticarcillin (48%) and imipenem (36%) and 17 strains (34%) had multiple drug resistance. Also, the ability to form biofilms of strains showed that 52% of them had strong biofilms and among 17 strains of P. aeruginosa with multiple drug resistance, 12 strains had the ability to form a strong biofilm. According to the results, a significant percentage of MDR strains have the ability to produce strong biofilms. Regarding the role of biofilms in reducing the penetration of the drug into cell, biofilm-producing bacteria have a high drug resistance, which is a warning to the medical community.

Probiotics are defined as live microorganisms that when administered in adequate amounts, confer a health benefit on the host and they can prevent from or cure some diseases. Most probiotics are strains of Bifidobacterium or Lactobacillus species. The Lactobacillus genus consists of a genetically and physiologically diverse group of rod-shaped, Gram-positive, non-spore forming, non-pigmenetd, catalase negative and microaerophilic to strictly anaerobic. Olive green is one of the oldest plant which used as an important food and has a key role in health, prevention and control of digestive, blood, and heart disease. It may be a proper carier for transporting of probiotics. Therefore, this property of olive green evaluated. In this study, 16 olive sample (packed, unpacked, and crude) were prepared to isolation of Lactobacilli. After isolation of total bacteria, morphological, cultural, and biochemical tests were used to identification of lactobacillus species. Finally, 4 strain of Lactobacillus plantarum and 1 strain of Lactobacillus acidophilus were identified. Our results shows that, in addition to many food advantages, olive green can be a carrier of probiotics.

Acietobacter baumanni is an important cause of nosocomial infections. This bacterium is resistant to many commonly-used antibiotics and multidrug resistance is often responsible for the failure of antibiotic therapy. Numerous mechanisms may lead to this resistance and the active efflux pumps is an important factor for mutidrug resistance in A. baumannii .Today aminoglycosides are important antibiotics used for the treatment of in A. baumannii serious infections.The aim of this study was investigation of efflux pupms activity for aminoglycoside resistance among clinical isolates of A. baumannii . 55 strains of Acinetobacter bumanni were isolated from clinical specimens of patients hospitalized in Milad hospital and identified by biochemical tests. Antibiotic resistance profile of strains to 11 antibiotics was determined by disc diffusion method according to CLSI standard and MDR strains were defined. Minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of amikacin and gentamicin was determined before and after treatment by efflux inhibitor carbonyl cyanide 3-chlorophenylhydrazone (CCCP). The highest resistance was to ceftazidim and cefotaxim (98.2%) and lowest resistance was to gentamicin(62%). Resistance to amikacin was 74.5%. The prevalence of MDR strains was 98% Among amikacin and gentamycin resistant isolates 4(9.3%) and 17(50%) strains reported as actively efflux pumps. One strain for both antibiotics had efflux pump activity. The efflux pump is more active for gentamicin tha amikacin among A. baumannii isolates.

Metastatic Prostate cancer is a lethal disease, but unfortunately the molecular mechanisms that underlie the metastasis of this common cancer are still poorly understood. In advanced stages of the cancer, cells cancerous may spread to the other part of the body specially to bones and lymph nodes. One of the important contributing processes in cancer invasion and metastasis is Epithelial to Mesenchymal Transition (EMT). Overexpression of ZEB1 as a key regulating factor, promotes EMT processes in a variety of cancers. In the present study, to evaluate the expression of ZEB1 and its differences between benign prostate hyperplasia and prostate cancer, 16 patients with BPH and 17 patients with Pca were selected, RNA was extracted and after synthesis of cDNA , ZEB1 expression in mRNA level was analyzed by Real Time PCR. Our results indicated that ZEB1 was overexpressed in Pca samples in comparison to BPH ones (P=0.047). In conclusion our findings suggest that evaluating the expression of ZEB1 is likely to be useful as a prognostic biomarker to diagnose prostate cancer in early stages. Furthermore, due to the critical role of ZEB1 in metastasis promotion of a variety of cancers through regulating other EMT markers, it would be possible to avoid progression and metastasis of prostate cancer by suppressing ZEB1.