KOWSAR MEDICAL JOURNAL
Year:2010 | Volume:15 | Issue:2|Papers Count:14

Aims: Since FimH protein has a main role in colonization of UPEC strains and causing infection, preparing the vaccine containing this adhesion is concerned. The aim of the study was to investigate the fimH gene variation among urinary and feces isolates.Materials & Methods: Urine and feces samples were taken from 15 patients affected by UTI, with the origin of Escherichia coli. After the culture of samples, Escherichia coli suspected colonies were separated and confirmed by biochemical tests. Urine and feces’ Escherichia coli isolates were cultured in LB Broth environment and were incubated one night. Genomic DNA was extracted and fimH gene was amplified using PCR. The gene sequence analysis was carried out using MEGA4, ClustalW and CLC Bio software.Results: In the alignment of fimH gene sequence related to the urine isolates with fimH gene associated with UTI 89 strain several mutations were observed. Moreover, there was the sequence difference between pathogenic strains isolated from urine and non-pathogenic feces strains. fimH sequence of feces isolates in Cterminal had insignificant mutations.Conclusion: Despite the 100 percent similarity of fimH gene sequence in four urinary and feces isolates, the difference of sequence in FimH protein and gene causes pathogenic isolates to have more affinity to urothelial cells. Insignificant mutation in C-terminal leads to the formation of truncated FimH, which can affect the attachment of feces strains to urotheilial cell; however, attachment factor has no role in Uropathogenic Escherichia coli pathogenic by itself.

Aims: As a result of several factors such as excessive use of drug, bacteria can resist against antibiotics. Antibiogram test is used to assess the antibiotic or the other antimicrobial agents’ ability in prevention from bacteria’s growth in laboratory. Based on the CLSI data in January 2006, regarding the disc diffusion test, the effect of 92 antibiotics have been evaluated with 329 different tests with different bacteria. Common standard disc dispensing is carried out with 15mm distance from the plate border. The aim of the study was to introduce a new tool for measuring the microorganisms’ sensitivity to antibiotics.Materials & Methods: In the graded new plate and its using method, disc dispensing was done without any distance from plate border and using a full or half-disk. Results: The lack of distance from plate border, not only had no negative effect on the results but also led to the higher accuracy and reduction of problems and errors and unwanted interference in the previous methods.Conclusion: The use of this plate and its method increases the efficiency of the disc diffusion test between 3-17% in the plates with standard sizes of 84-120 mm.

Aims: In the present study, the effect of intra-VTA post-training administration of a nonselective muscarinic antagonist, scopolamine and the drugs affecting N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors and their interaction in the inhibitory avoidance memory consolidation was investigated.Materials & Methods: Rats were anesthetized with intra-peritoneal injection of ketamine hydrochloride, plus xylazine and then placed in a stereotaxic apparatus. Two cannuales were placed 2 mm above ventral tegmental area. After a week, rats were trained in a passive avoidance learning unit and the drugs were injected after the successful training. The test was carried out 24h after the training and the animal’s latency in entrancing to black box was measured as the memory criteria. One-and two-way analyses of variance (ANOVAs) followed by Tukey’s post hoc test, were used for analysis of the data.Results: Intra-VTA administration of scopolamine (1-2 mg/rat) and MK-801 (0.75-1 mg/rat) immediately after training decreased inhibitory avoidance memory on the test day. Co-administration of an ineffective dose of MK801 and scopolamine (0.25-0.5 mg/rat) significantly decreased the inhibitory avoidance memory. Posttraining intra-VTA injections of NMDA (0.01-0.001 mg/rat) had no effect by itself, whereas its co-administration with scopolamine (2 mg/rat) prevented the decreasing effect of scopolamine on inhibitory avoidance memory.Conclusion: Muscarinic acetylcholine and NMDA receptors are involved in the mechanism (s) modulating inhibitory avoidance memory. There is an interaction between muscarinic and NMDA receptors in the modulation of inhibitory avoidance memory consolidation in the ventral tegmental area.

Aims: Papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) and follicular carcinoma (FC) are two main variants of familial nonmodularly thyroid carcinoma (FNMTC). TCO gene seems to be effective in this disease. This study was to investigate the effect of loss of heterozygosity of the TCO gene in Iranian families suffering from this disease.Materials & Methods: During the six-months cross sectional study, 10 families affected by familial nonmodularly thyroid carcinoma (FNMTC) were selected from Milad hospital (56 subjects including 13 patients with pathologic confirmation and 43 healthy individual of their close families). The DNA content of samples was extracted based on the standard salting out/Proteinase K method. The LOH of the TCO gene was analyzed using 5 markers (D19S916, D19S413, D19S391, D19S568 and D19S865). Following the proliferation of the desired components using PCR, products’ polyacrylamide gel 8% electrophoresis was carried out for determining the genotype.Results: 5.4% of patients (n=3) suffered from the follicular carcinomas and 17.9% (n=10), from the papillary carcinomas. In all of them the LOH in TCO gene area was detected. The frequency of LOH positive cases for each marker was 10.7% (n=6) for D19S916, 12.5% (n=7) for D19S413, 41.1% (n=23) for D19S391, 1.8% (n=1) for D19S568 and 3.6% (n=2) for D19S865.Conclusion: 13.9% of FNMTC cases averagely have LOH in 19p13.2 chromosomal area and genetic loss is considerably more common in papillary carcinomas patients in comparison to follicular carcinomas patients. D19S413 marker is the most informative LOH in FNMTC individuals. The gene(s) located on the 19p13.2 may be associated with FNMTC.

Aims: This study was conducted to investigate the pasteurized milks contamination with M1 Aflatoxin (AFM1) and comparison of the products of two main factories that provide one of Tehran Universities dairy needs, in terms of contaminating with this mycotoxin. Materials & Methods: Fifty milk samples produced by two dairy factories were randomly selected during two cold (winter 2008) and warm (summer 2009) seasons and their AFM1 concentration was determined by a competitive Enzyme-Linked Immuno Sorbent Assay (ELISA) method. The mean differences were analyzed using student T-test in software INSTATA environment.Results: 84% of the examined milk samples were contaminated with AFM1 by measurable amounts. Mean of the mycotoxin concentration in whole samples was 20.7±14.6 ng/l ranging from 0 to 63.4 ng/l. AFM1 contamination was higher than Iran national standard (50 ng/ l) only in two (4%) of the milk samples. The mean concentration of AFM1 was higher in no. 1 company’s products (25.3±15.7) in comparison with no.2 company (15.4±11.6; p<0.01). The no. 1 company’s winter products (31.2±15 ng/l) were more contaminated in contrasting with its summer products (18.5±14.2 ng/l; p<0.05).Conclusions: High prevalence of AFM1 contamination in pasteurized milk samples is worrying and notifies the necessity of preventing measures to reduce entrance of B1 Aflatoxin to dairy animals’ feed and more controlling measures on milk distribution.

Aims: Brucellosis is a common disease with different clinical forms and diagnostic methods. Regarding to the increasing use of ELISA test as a new diagnostic method and differences between the results of standard ELISA and agglutination tests, this study was conducted to determine the sensitivity and specificity of ELISA method for diagnosis of brucellosis.Materials & Methods: This cross-sectional study was done in Kashan, Iran in 2007, on 457 blood samples of persons with clinically suspected brucellosis who were referred to laboratory by infectious disease’ specialist and on 50 individuals without history of brucellosis as the control group. The wright, coombs wright and 2ME tests as the standard tests and ELISA IgG and IgM were done and characteristic and sensitivity of ELISA was compared with standard tests and the results were presented as the descriptive statistics. Results: The sensitivity of IgG and IgM ELISA tests was 93.7% and 12.5%, respectively. IgG and IgM ELISA test’s specificity was 70.6% and 100%, the positive predictive value of IgG and IgM ELISA tests was 19.4% and 100%, respectively and the negative predictive value of ELISA IgG and IgM was 99.3% and 94%.Conclusion: Regarding the high sensitivity of IgG ELISA and high specificity of IgM ELISA, the ELISA test can be used along with agglutination tests for diagnosis of brucellosis.

Aims: Ophthalmia Neonatorum (ON) is defined as conjunctivitis symptoms appearance in the first 28 days of the infant life. The most important causes of ON infection are Nisseria gonorrhea, Chlamidia trachomatis and Staphilococus aureus. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of erythromycin and povidon iodine and artificial teardrop in prevention from ON.Materials & Methods: In this randomized clinical trial, 321 neonates born in a 6 months period at one of the Tehran hospitals and Shari’ati Hospital in Bandar Abbas, arrived in the study randomly. After the sampling from their conjunctiva, erythromycin, tetracycline or artificial tear and povidon iodine drop 2.5% were instilled in the right eye and the left eye were leaved as the control. A questionnaire containing infant and mother information was filled. In the case of symptoms outbreak, eye secretion culture was carried out. Data were analyzed using SPSS13 software and matched-paired T and Chi-square tests.Results: 61 (19%) of cases returned with symptoms of conjunctivitis, and 14 (22.9%) of cases had positive culture. In groups of erythromycin, tetracycline, artificial teardrop and povidon iodine, respectively, 7.9%, 11.58%, 6.25% and 9.1% returned with symptoms. There were no significant difference between the symptom outbreak, microbial culture and the type of used drug as prophylaxis, also no significant difference was observed regarding the type of delivery and ON symptom outbreak.Conclusion: With regard to the insignificancy of the symptom outbreak rate in groups of prophylaxis, the routine use of prophylaxis cannot be presented as a necessity and confirms the more accurate studies in future.

Aims: Mustard gas or Mustard Sulfur which was used during Iran-Iraq war is responsible for about one million chemical injured patients in Iran. In the previous studies, a decrease in spinal and femoral bone mineral density in patients who had the history of exposure to MSG, compared with control group, was observed. This study was conducted to compare the chemical and asthmatic patients using steroid for the treatment of polmunary complications.Materials & Methods: In this analytical cross-sectional study, 76 chemical injured patients exposed to MSG who referred to one of the Tehran city hospitals and 55 asthmatic patients without chemical injury were selected using randomized sampling method during 2006-08. A femoral and spinal Bone Mineral Densitometry (BMD) was performed for the patients using Dual X-ray Absorptiometry (DEXA) technique. The data was analysed using SPSS 15 software and statistical Chi-square, student T, Fisher exact and Mann-Whitney U tests.Results: There was no significant differences between femoral and spinal BMD’s mean values in patients with the history of MSG exposure and Asthmatic patients (Power=23%; p>0.05). Totally, quantitative assessment showed 48% osteoporosis,40.8% osteopenia and 12.2% normal BMD in chemical exposed patients and 36.4% osteoporosis, 49.1% osteopenia and 14.5% normal BMD in Asthmatic patients.Conclusion: There is no significant difference between the femoral and spinal BMD in chemical and asthmatic patients.

Aims: Leukemia or blood cancer is known as the world fifth prevailing cancers and includes 8% of the whole cancers. This disease is also known as the children’s cancer since approximately 15% of the children of lower than 15 years old are affected by this complication. There are so many factors affecting the cancer occurrence such as age, gender, race, blood groups and rays and mother’s contamination to Helicobacter pylori bacteria, etc.Materials & Methods: In this study 424 patients suffering from blood cancer in hematology and oncology A and B sections of Shari’ati Hospital were studied from September of 2007 to 2008 in Tehran. Patients’ information was collected using a researcher made questionnaire from the patients’ arrival moment. Blood group, age and gender indexes were analyzed accurately. Data were analyzed using SPSS 16 and Chi-square test. Results: The frequency of the occurrence of this disease in men was 1.5 times more than women. Also the probability of its presence in A, O and Rh+ blood groups and people is higher than the other groups.Conclusion: Age, gender and blood group are involved in the rate of affecting by blood cancer.

Aims: Hypertension is the most important modifiable factor in the cardiovascular diseases. The aim of this study was to determine the effectiveness of group motivational interviewing on the blood pressure of people suffering from hypertension.Materials & Methods: This research is a quasi-experimental study with the pre-test, post-test and a control group which was conducted at different time intervals on 61 patients suffering from systolic blood pressure from 125 to 160 mm Hg in the Isfahan medical sciences university in a project for screening diabetes and metabolic syndrome in 2009. 80 subjects were selected by random sampling and were randomly divided into the experimental group (N=40) and the control group (N=40). An intervention consists of five sessions of group motivational interviewing and common lifestyle training was provided for the experimental group. The data was analyzed using statistical covariance analysis and dependent T-test.Results: The mean of the systolic blood pressure (p=0.01) and diastolic blood pressure (p=0.05) were significantly lower in the group receiving the motivational interview than the control group after the intervention. Despite the fact that there was no significant difference in systolic blood pressure in the follow-up stage, the effect of the motivational interviewing on diastolic blood pressure was reported to be persistent.Conclusion: Including motivational interview in the health lifestyle trainings for controlling and preventing high-blood pressure is an effective way for decreasing blood pressure and consequently decreasing dangerous factors in cardiovascular diseases.